Eighty years after the Holocaust, Jews are once again being attacked on European soil, with each day seemingly bringing a more disturbing headline from countries across the continent. Leaders on the frontlines of the fight against antisemitism warn that the threat is worsening as governments embracing the Palestinian cause effectively fan the flames of hatred.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom followed France in announcing its intention to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state—a move condemned by Israel and the United States as rewarding the Hamas terrorist group, which led a mass invasion of the western Negev on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping another 251 to Gaza.
Days earlier, a visibly Jewish father and his 6-year-old son, visiting from France, were verbally and physically assaulted by a pro-Palestinian mob near Milan in northern Italy—a case that highlights the disturbing trend of targeting Jews for perceived actions committed by Israel.
🚨 ITALY NOW: Rabbi and Child Attacked for Being Jewish
At an Autogrill in Milan, a rabbi and his little boy were screamed at by a mob yelling "Palestine" slogans.
No Israeli symbols. No politics.
Just a Jew and his son. pic.twitter.com/Ha91adA55P
— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) July 28, 2025
Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis and former chief rabbi of Moscow, condemned the incident as an act of barbarity and urged Italian authorities to treat it as a hate crime and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Daniel Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, said that actions such as France and the United Kingdom recognizing a Palestinian state, or the misleading portrayal of humanitarian efforts in Gaza, serve to intensify and legitimize the current surge in antisemitism. These developments, he said in a phone interview from Washington, act as catalysts, fueling and encouraging the growing wave of anti-Jewish sentiment and behavior. “Red lines certainly are being crossed,” Mariaschin remarked.
Other recent incidents in Europe include Israeli teens attacked in Rhodes by pro-Palestinian assailants; an Israeli musician and his colleagues expelled from a Vienna restaurant for speaking Hebrew; more than 50 French Jewish youths removed from a Valencia flight for singing in Hebrew; an Israeli DJ’s performance canceled in Belgium; and shows by two British Jewish comedians dropped from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In response to growing concerns over antisemitism in Europe, Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, managing director of American Jewish Committee Europe, underscored a troubling transformation in how exclusionary practices are spreading. “Today, the logic of exclusion is being normalized from within—not by fringe actors, but by employees, administrators, students, restaurant owners, hotel employees and artists … who no longer see themselves as violating norms, but as defending them,” Rodan-Benzaquen told JNS in emailed comments.
She further stressed that antisemitism is increasingly manifesting in everyday interactions, warning that “Antisemitism … is emerging through ordinary refusals: service denied at a restaurant, access blocked at a venue, a name removed from a program. These are not accidents.” According to Rodan-Benzaquen, this shift marks a significant challenge as previously fringe behaviors move into mainstream society, reshaping what is considered socially acceptable.
“The situation is dramatically getting worse every single day. I think that what we see is really like the time of the Cossacks in back-then Russia, Ukraine—where you have groups of people who are very aggressive towards Jewish people, and the Jews have to beg the authorities to control it, and the authorities are not 100% committed,” Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman and founder of the European Jewish Association, told JNS by phone from Brussels.
“Every time Israel is accused and the Palestinians are perceived as victims, it always increases the tension and the violations and accusations against Jews in Europe,” Margolin said. “It is not very safe to walk around as Jewish people in many streets of Europe. It’s a very dangerous period of time we’re living in,” he added.
‘People get their support from leaders’
He echoed Mariaschin’s assertion that rhetoric and policy decisions from European capitals criticizing Israel only intensify the hostility Jews are experiencing on the streets.
“In countries where leaders are vocally criticizing Israel, we see many more attacks,” stated Margolin, stressing that public sentiment often follows the lead of politicians.
“People get their support from the leaders,” he said, pointing to a troubling double standard: “There are other issues in the world that those people say nothing about, and yet when it comes to Israel, the level of criticism is really high; it certainly contributes to the rise of antisemitism. This hypocrisy has to stop.”
Jew-hatred in Europe was already at high levels before the Oct. 7 attack and subsequent war in Gaza led to an explosion of antisemitism across the globe.
A survey by the European Union’s Fundamental Rights Agency published on July 11, 2024, found that 96% of Jewish respondents across 13 European countries had encountered antisemitism in the year before June 2023, with over 70% occasionally hiding their identity and half worrying about their safety or that of their families.
The findings show that most antisemitic incidents go unreported due to fears that “nothing will happen or change,” while satisfaction with official responses is low.
‘Decades-long drumbeat of anti-Israel rhetoric’
In a phone interview with JNS from Los Angeles, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, sought to place the current surge in antisemitism into historical perspective.
“One bitter lesson delivered by the Nazis is that for the Jew haters, it didn’t matter what kind of Jew you were—you were the enemy and needed to be eliminated,” he said. The rabbi traced the evolution of anti-Jewish rhetoric from the Nazi era into the Cold War, pointing out that “after World War II, the Soviets were the main engine for anti-Zionism. They even reused Nazi propaganda techniques, just changing the targets from ‘Jew’ to ‘Zionist’ or ‘Israeli.’”
Cooper described how these narratives endured and morphed over time, noting that “anti-Zionist efforts were kept alive after the Shoah, revived with statements like ‘Zionism is racism’ in 1975.”
The Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, he argued, have now erased any tradition of distinguishing between Israeli policy and Jewish identity. “Oct. 7 erased any distinction—Hamas didn’t care if its victims were secular or religious, left or right,” said Cooper.
And he linked today’s intensified environment of antisemitism to new technological realities, saying with “social media and AI, disinformation spreads rapidly.” He cited a recent example of a disabled Palestinian child whose image was misrepresented in propaganda “about ‘starvation’ in Gaza—misrepresenting his medical condition to demonize Israel.”
Cooper also highlighted what he called a “decades-long drumbeat of anti-Israel rhetoric in the media,” and pointed to deep-seated Holocaust guilt in Europe that he said was, paradoxically, twisted into accusations against Jews today. “Calling Israel ‘Nazis’ serves as a payback, making a false moral equivalency,” he said.
‘Debate over a two-state solution is gone’
What sets this moment apart, according to Cooper, is the speed and scale of the messaging, amplified by outside actors: “What’s different now is how fast and effectively these messages spread, thanks to heavy funding, especially from Iran and Qatar, and coordination by groups like Hamas.” He described how campaigns like BDS have shifted from targeting Israeli policies to “demonizing all Jews and Israeli culture, anyone doing business with Israel.”
Finally, Cooper noted that “debate over a two-state solution is gone; now it’s total delegitimization,” adding that even “pro-Palestinian journalists were shocked by the extremity of the attacks” that followed the events of Oct. 7.
The European Jewish Association is taking a multi-pronged approach to combat rising antisemitism across Europe. “Inside the communities, we give training and support to the community leaders—both presidents of Jewish communities and rabbis,” Margolin explained.
Recent initiatives have included conferences and seminars to prepare leaders for public challenges, media engagement and direct communication with authorities. “Just last week we had a conference, a seminar for community leaders about how to deal with this situation in public, how to communicate with authorities and the media. We also had a Krav Maga session for the rabbis,” he noted, highlighting the emphasis on both advocacy skills and personal safety.
On the political front, the EJA works tirelessly to engage governments and raise awareness at the highest levels. “We have our people located in different countries in Europe, and we work with governments and authorities across the continent to explain what the situation is. Many of them are not aware. We raise their awareness and try to push them to take the right steps,” Margolin emphasized.
While the organization has had success in bringing more politicians on board and increasing commitment, he remains clear-eyed about the challenge: “As long as Jews in Europe are not safe, we cannot say we have achieved our goals.”