Around the globe, hatred for Jews is at an all-time high. While we are familiar with the synagogue shootings which have taken place here in the United States and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, as heinous as these acts have been, the situation for Jews is far worse in the UK, Germany, New Zealand, Ireland and elsewhere.
Beginning is 1984, an entity called the Community Security Trust, a nonprofit watchdog charity registered in Scotland, Wales and England, began compiling data on anti-Semitic incidents in the UK (United Kingdom). According to their figures, there were 1,382 anti-Semitic incidents recorded nationwide in 2017 and this figure takes into account only those incidences which were officially reported. Culturally, Jews refuse to be painted as victims. Consequently, many acts of anti-Semitism go unreported. In the past three years, the number of hate crimes against Jews has continued to climb. On average, the Jewish community in the UK is targeted at a rate of nearly four times a day.
Research indicates that there is no obvious single cause behind the upward trend in violent crimes against Jews. These acts are not triggered in response to any identifiable event but rather are purely evil acts of baseless hatred. It’s becoming common in the UK, Germany, France and elsewhere for Jewish people to be subjected to verbal abuse in public for no other reason than being Jewish. This was the atmosphere just prior to World War II and the rise of Hitler’s Germany. This same atmosphere is again manifesting in today’s Germany.
Hatred is rising and Jewish people are suffering. This should concern everybody. Anger and division are a threat to all of society. Laws have been passed but prosecutions need to be more visible. Perpetrators need to be identified and held accountable for their malicious, criminal behavior and actions. Jews are being singled out disproportionately and with increasing violence due to the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy myths originating from Islamists, the far left and the far right, left-leaning academics and the liberal media. This should serve as a wake-up call for us all. No where in the civilized world should hatred against any particular people group be tolerated. Those who proclaim “death to Israel and death to America” must be held accountable. If we turn a blind eye and convince ourselves that another Holocaust is impossible, then we are delusional. In the famous words of Edmund Burke, an Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.” What will you do?