Normalizing Violent Antisemitism

"High levels of antisemitism have become a normalized feature in societies with large Jewish minorities."

"The data raise concern that a high level of antisemitic incidents is becoming a normalized reality." 

"The label of antisemitism is harsh and should be applied only after careful consideration and based on solid criteria."

"The peak in the number of incidents was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack, after which we began to see a downward trend. But unfortunately, that trend did not continue in 2025."  

Uriya Shavit, chief editor, Tel Aviv University annual report 

Survivor Saul Reichert, third from left, and his family light a candle at Toronto's Holocaust memorial event, April 13, 2026. (Credit: Shay Markowitz, for the Toronto Holocaust Museum)

"Offenders align with two main ideological orientations."

"They are predominantly Christian white supremacists or Muslims who apply antisemitism as a response to grievances about Middle Eastern political developments."

"[The] most worrying phenomenon [of the past year had been the] normalisation of antisemitic rhetoric in American political discourse."

"[US President Donald Trump had] tolerated, as no contemporary president has, deep-seated, loathsome antisemites within his camp, and continues to do so for cynical political reasons."

"The result is a new culture of everything-goes that is undermining the sense that Jews have had for decades that their future in America is secure."

Tel Aviv University annual report  

The attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach killed 15 members of the Jewish Community.  Getty Images

 

According to an annual study released on Monday, coinciding with the Shoah Day of Remembrance, 2025 distinguished itself as the most violent year in thirty, for Jews facing a resurgence of global antisemitism. The study pointed out that Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Australia had all posted notable increases in antisemitic incidents reported in 2025. In the United States and France, irrespective of notable physical attacks on Jewish targets, the report found the number of antisemitic incidents there declined.

 

Violence against Jews saw a spike beginning after the  Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel when an estimated 6 thousand terrorists flooded across from Gaza into Israel, followed by ordinary Palestinian citizens, all of whom committed barbaric, sadistic acts of rape, torture, burning entire families alive in their homes, slaughtering over a thousand civilians, foreign farm workers, children and the elderly, while taking infants, their parents and grandparents, women and men hostage into Gaza.

When Israel mobilized the Israel Defense Forces to enter Gaza to search for Hamas leaders, their operatives, and those of Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all involved in the heinous bloodshed, the world -- initially shocked at the carnage committed in Israel -- turned against Israeli reprisal against the terrorists, despite the military doing its utmost to spare civilian lives through pre-strike alerts and organized population moves out of harm's way.

A sign reading "Jewish Lives Should Matter, Too" is seen at the floral tributes area outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on Dec. 18, 2025, to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting. The attack at Bondi Beach on Dec.14 was one of the deadliest in Australian history. Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images 

 

In Sydney, Australia, a Muslim father and son duo launched a deadly attack on Bondi Beach, killing 15 members of the Jewish community that had gathered in December to celebrate Hannukah. Two antisemitic attacks in the United States in Washington, D.C. and Colorado were mounted, while in Britain two people were murdered at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in Judaism's High Holy Days.

 

Tel Aviv University's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, alongside the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights and Justice annually release their report on antisemitism, coinciding with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that serves as a national memorial for the six million Jewish children, women and men whose lives were systematically obliterated in a state mechanism deployed to destroy Europe's Jews. 

 

An increase in antisemitic attacks resulting in physical harm is tracked annually to produce each year's report. This report found that 2025 represented the deadliest year for such attacks since 1994, when a Jewish community centre in Argentina (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina),was bombed, where 85 people died and over 300 were wounded. A suicide-bombing attributed to Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah, the Islamic State of Iran's proxy terrorist groups in Lebanon. 

 

Since 2023, the incidents of viral antisemitism have soared, in comparison to those committed in 2022 Incidents that range from physical violence and vandalism to verbal threats and harassment on social media are all tracked by researchers who produce the final report. The report relies on statistics based on reports from police, national authorities, and local Jewish communities.

 

In Canada alone, to cite one country in isolation from others, the number of incidents rose from 6,219 committed in 2024, to 6,800 in 2025, representing a number over three times steeper than in 2022 -- pre-October 7's Palestinian terrorist horde attacking Israeli farming communities and a nearby musical festival where over 370 young festival-goers, men and women were raped and murdered. 

Some might question why the report failed to address the phenomenon of mass protests on the streets of Europe and North America by Palestinian and Muslim groups that immediately began accusing Israel of 'genocide' in its terrorist-seeking foray into Gaza, where masked, keffiyeh-clad 'protesters' issued threats against Israel and harassed, hounded and threatened diaspora-citizen Jews. Where in Canada, synagogues, Jewish parochial schools, and private businesses owned by Jews were vandalized and shot up.  

 

Rabbi Yossi Friedman speaks to people gathering at a flower memorial by the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, following Sunday’s shooting in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)