The children’s bookstore in Sant Cugat, Spain, was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti and slogans, prompting outrage from the local Jewish community. Photo: Screenshot

Jews and Israelis across Europe continue to face a troubling surge in antisemitic abuse and discrimination — including death threats, exclusion from businesses, and harassment — amid an increasingly hostile climate that has only intensified in recent weeks.

In Germany, a well-known pizzeria has prohibited Israelis from entering and receiving service at the restaurant, marking one of the latest antisemitic incidents targeting the country’s Jewish community during the war in Gaza.

Pizza Zulu, located in Bavaria in southeastern Germany, posted a sign outside its shop stating that Israelis will no longer be admitted, while insisting the decision was neither political nor racist.

“We love all human beings regardless of where they come from. We believe children should not be harmed regardless of the circumstances. We are an international group, and we belong to civil society, and therefore we will not keep silent like the rest of the world,” the sign posted on the restaurant’s facade read.

“We decided to protest, and our protest is neither political nor racist. We will no longer accept Israelis in the place. We will welcome them back when they decide to open their eyes, ears, and hearts,” it continued.

Following sharp criticism and outrage from the local Jewish community, the sign was reportedly removed hours later, but it remains unclear whether local authorities have launched an investigation into the incident or if the restaurant is now welcoming Israelis back into the establishment.

Meanwhile, the Bavarian antisemitism commissioner, Ludwig Spaenle, reported that in a separate incident in Bavaria, a music shop demanded that an Israeli customer read a statement opposing the war in Gaza before being allowed to rent equipment.

These latest antisemitic incidents come amid a surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes and anti-Israel sentiment across Europe and around the world since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, leaving Jewish communities increasingly alarmed over targeted attacks in a growingly hostile climate.

In Spain, a group of Jewish students received anonymous letters containing Nazi imagery, anti-Israel slogans, and a message reading: “Jewish rats. Palestine will win!”

After students in Madrid came forward expressing fear for their safety, local authorities opened an investigation into the incident.

Community leaders denounced the incident, saying that such messages reflect a troubling mix of deep-rooted antisemitism and modern-day anti-Israel hostility.

“This is not criticism of Israel or the conflict. This is naked, old-fashioned bigotry, designed to terrorize an entire community,” Madrid’s Chief Rabbi Moisés Bendahan said in a statement.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) also condemned the incident, urging authorities to pursue prompt, visible prosecutions to prevent further hate crimes.

“This is a chilling warning to all Western democracies that antisemitism remains a potent threat to safety, order, and communal belonging,” the FCJE wrote in a post on X.

The World Jewish Congress also denounced the incident, calling on Spanish authorities to strengthen protections for Jewish communities and reaffirm Madrid’s commitment to religious freedom and minority rights.

“We stand with Spanish Jews in demanding a clear public condemnation of all forms of antisemitism, no matter the guise,” the statement read.

In Switzerland, a kosher hotel in Davos recently received a letter containing antisemitic insults, Holocaust references, Nazi imagery, and explicit death threats warning, “we will come and kill you all.”

Local authorities have launched an investigation into the incident after receiving the letter.

The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) strongly condemned the incident, stressing its seriousness and noting that such threats were once rare in Switzerland.

“A death threat is not a verbal slur. It has a completely different nature and, above all, a completely different effect on the people concerned,” Jonathan Kreutner, SIG’s secretary-general, said in a statement.

Crouse College at Syracuse University. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Law enforcement agents in upstate New York have filed hate crime charges against two Syracuse University students who they say forcefully gained entry into a Jewish fraternity’s off-campus house on Tuesday during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and heaved a bag of pork at a wall, causing its contents to splatter across the floor.

“This incident is not a foolish college prank and will not be treated as such,” local District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said in a statement addressing the alleged crime, which targeted the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity, a registered organization of Syracuse University. “It will be treated for what it is, a crime directed against a group of Jewish students enjoying a celebratory dinner and seemingly secure in their residence.”

Allen Groves, Syracuse University’s chief officer of student experience, said a statement on behalf of the school that law enforcement captured the suspects just moments after they attempted to abscond to an unknown location in a getaway car. He added that they, in addition to pending criminal penalties, will face disciplinary charges brought by the school.

“The students involved have been referred to Community Standards pursuant to our Student Conduct Code, and pending the outcome of an investigation, will face appropriate disciplinary action through our established procedures,” Groves said. “Tonight’s incident as reported to us is abhorrent, shocking to the conscience, and violates our value of being a place that is truly welcoming to all. It will not be tolerated at Syracuse University.”

This is not the first time that a Jewish fraternity has been targeted on a day of significance to the American Jewish community.

In September 2022, a Jewish fraternity at Rutgers University (RU) was vandalized during Rosh Hashanah.

News of the incident was first reported by StopAntisemitism, a US-based watchdog, in a post showing the ground outside an entrance at Alpha Epsilon Pi’s (AEPi) house splattered with eggs.

“This is now the 3rd time the Jewish fraternity house has been egged,” the group noted at the time. “What is campus police and administrators doing to catch those responsible?”

Antisemitic hate crimes in the US continued to add up to record-setting and harrowing statistical figures in 2024, according to the latest data issued by the FBI last month, prompting calls by Jewish leaders for a society-wide intervention.

Even as hate crimes decreased overall, those perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the FBI’s counting them. Jewish American groups noted that this surge, which included 178 assaults, is being experienced by a demographic group which constitutes just 2 percent of the US population.

A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.

Antisemitic hate crimes kept federal and local law enforcement agents busy throughout 2024, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.

In November, for example, the US Department of Justice secured the conviction of a Massachusetts man, John Reardon, 59, who threatened to perpetrate mass killings of Jews. Over several months, Reardon called Jewish institutions across Massachusetts, proclaiming that he would kill Jewish men, women, and children in their houses of worship. His terroristic menacing included promises to plant bombs in synagogues in the cities of Sharon and Attleboro, as well as making 98 calls to the Israeli Consulate in Boston, a behavior which began on Oct. 7, 2023, and ended just days before his apprehension by law enforcement in January.

In New York City, meanwhile, the Jewish community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn endured a violent series of robberies and other attacks. In one instance, three masked men attempted to rob a Hasidic man after stalking him through the neighborhood. Before then, two men beat a middle-aged Hasidic man after he refused to surrender his cell phone in compliance with what appears to have been an attempted robbery. Additionally, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, and less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face.

The wave of hatred has not relented in 2025.

In June, a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they exited an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted a major Jewish organization. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”

Less than two weeks later, a man firebombed a crowd of people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the Israeli hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. A victim of the attack, Karen Diamond, 82, later died, having sustained severe, fatal injuries.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

An appeals court in Argentina has confirmed that 10 individuals accused of orchestrating the 1994 terrorist bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center will face trial in absentia, a decision which demonstrates the continued pushback against the global reach of Iran’s terror network in the region.

The Buenos Aires City Federal Appeals Court on Tuesday upheld a ruling by Federal Judge Daniel Rafecas to move ahead with trial even without the accused, according to the Buenos Aires Times. Judges Martín Irurzun and Mariano Llorens ratified the order.

The July 18, 1994, attack killed 85 people and injured more than 300, leaving the AMIA building in ruins. Argentine and Israeli investigators long ago determined the bombing’s order originated at the top of the Iranian regime and that Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based chief terrorist proxy, received the directive. Tehran denies involvement.

Those indicted include such officials as former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died on Jan. 8, 2017; former intelligence minister Ali Fallahijan; ex-foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati; Mohsen Rezai, then commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; and Ahmad Vahidi, the Quds Force chief at the time of the attack who also served as Iran’s interior minister from 2021-2024. Others under indictment include Ahmad Reza Asghari, a diplomat stationed in Buenos Aires, and Mohsen Rabbani, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy widely accused of masterminding the plot. Hezbollah operatives Salman Raouf Salman, Abdallah Salman, and Hussein Mounir Mouzannar were also indicted, as The Algemeiner reported on June 27.

In a statement earlier this year, Rafecas defended the decision, saying the trial in absentia was “essential to prevent the perpetuation of impunity.” Prosecutors have gone even further, requesting an arrest warrant for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The AMIA case has been challenged by perpetual cover-ups, corruption, and murder. Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor who in 2006 charged Iran and Hezbollah with the bombing, later accused then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of conspiring to bury the investigation in exchange for Iranian oil. Nisman was found dead in his apartment in 2015, the day before he was set to testify before Congress.

In 2024, an Argentine appeals court called the AMIA bombing a “crime against humanity” and formally declared Iran a “terrorist state.” The court also ruled that the 1992 truck bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29, was directed by Tehran.

The ruling this week comes when some analysts say Hezbollah’s global networks face increasing strain but still pose lethal threats. A March 2025 report by the RAND Corporation warned that Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America lack serious analysis even as they evolve, highlighting money laundering, arms and drug trafficking, and recruitment efforts across the hemisphere.

“Hezbollah maintains networks in Latin America that combine both fundraising operations and the targeting of Israeli state facilities, Jewish community institutions, and US interests,” wrote RAND analyst Marzia Giambertoni. “Although significant uncertainty exists regarding its existing operational capacity, a pattern of disrupted violent plots reveals that the group has a persistent intent to develop such capabilities in the region”

The RAND report characterized the 1992 and 1994 Buenos Aires bombings as deadly reminders of Hezbollah’s ability to strike far from Lebanon, noting how recent arrests in Brazil in November 2023 of suspects conspiring to hit Jewish targets showed continued danger.

“Despite its demonstrated capacity for violence, Hezbollah’s existing operational patterns suggest a continued focus on maintaining its fundraising and logistical networks rather than expanding its attack capabilities in Latin America. However, given the group’s historical willingness to conduct attacks in the region and its deep ties to Iran, this calculus could change rapidly in response to regional or global developments,” Giambertoni warned.

US officials have also focused efforts on Iran-backed terrorists in the region. In May, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program renewed its offer of up to $10 million for information on Hezbollah’s financial networks in the Tri-Border Area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, describing the location as a hub for criminal financing, contraband, document fraud, and smuggling operations.

“Hezbollah is directly responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans,” US Sen. John Curtis (R-UT) said in March when he and fellow Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the bipartisan “No Hezbollah in Our Hemisphere Act.” The legislation directs the State Department to push Latin American governments to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and to ban visas for officials who support the terrorist organization. “For too long, this Iranian-backed terrorist group has used Latin America as a safe haven for illicit financing, recruitment, and other criminal activities — fueling drug trafficking at our southern border and posing significant threats to our national security,” Curtis said.

Rosen added, “Iran-backed Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that has operated in the Western Hemisphere for decades to raise funds for its destabilizing activities around the globe. This is a threat to US national security and cannot be tolerated.”

Analysts have described how Iran’s ties in Latin America extend beyond Hezbollah. An explainer by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas observed that the Iranian regime has cultivated ties with Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Bolivia as part of its “Axis of Resistance” approach.

“Iranians have worked hard to build connective tissue with the region,” said Brian Fonseca, the director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy and an adjunct professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University. “But I’m not convinced these are deep ties. They are more transactional.”

For Argentine President Javier Milei, the AMIA case has become a driving cause.

Milei has vowed to pursue justice with vigor, declaring last year that “Iran is an enemy of Argentina.”