As anti-Jewish sentiment increases and potentially becomes official policy, the Golden Age for Jews in America may well be over
Two years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that the elected mayor of New York City would boast of having Israel’s prime minister arrested for war crimes on an International Criminal Court warrant; that two young people attending an American Jewish Committee event in Washington, D.C. would be gunned down by an assailant shouting “Free Palestine”; or that Jews attending Yom Kippur services in Manchester would be run over and then stabbed to death – and that none of these acts would be committed by right-wing extremists.
Such is the effect of October 7, 2023, on Jews living abroad. While the actions of sovereign Jews in Israel have always influenced Jewish life in the Diaspora, the effects of October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza are being felt in ways unseen since Israel’s establishment – especially with the surge in antisemitism across Western countries not witnessed since the Holocaust.
This raises a stark question: Has a Rubicon been crossed? Has antipathy toward Jews and Israel reached a critical mass that will harden, making today’s heightened antisemitism the new normal? Or will levels of antisemitism recede with major operations in Gaza over and as global attention shifts elsewhere?
This is far from the first time events in Israel have reverberated among Jews abroad. Even in biblical times, the Prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, reacted furiously when Judean King Zedekiah rebelled against Babylon – shocking Jews in exile who viewed his decision to ally with Egypt, Babylon’s enemy, as reckless.
In modern history, Israel has repeatedly shaped Jewish identity worldwide – from its founding to the Six-Day War. In later decades, events such as the First Intifada, the First Lebanon War, Israel’s policies in the West Bank and repeated Gaza conflicts temporarily soured Western opinion. Yet Israel’s standing eventually recovered. Crucially, none of those episodes significantly affected levels of antisemitism in the West.
October 7 and its aftermath, however, were different. Until that day, Jews abroad could choose how central Israel was to their identity. That bifurcated existence ended abruptly two years ago. The post–October 7 spike in antisemitism remained exceptionally high through 2024, and 2025 data suggests the trend is not easing.
It was as if a genie had been let out of the bottle, revealing it had been trapped there for quite some time. The intellectual worldview that has taken root in academia – casting Israel as colonialist and genocidal, and Jews as members or even leaders of the white oppressor class – has spread far beyond universities into other cultural institutions. We may be entering a new era marking the end of the post-World War II hiatus in Western antisemitism.
Particularly troubling is that antisemitism is most pronounced among young adults under 35, the group most hostile to both Israel and Jews. For many – especially those on campus in spring 2024 – the Gaza war became the defining moral cause of their generation. Terms like “starvation” and “genocide” entered mainstream discourse, embedding prejudice that will be hard to undo. Hate against Jews employing these terms crosses ideological lines and is rife both on the far right (which exploits anti-Israel rhetoric as a convenient conduit for antisemitism) to the far and not-so-far left (which cloaks its hostility in the language of justice), accusing “Zionists” and sometimes plain “Jews” of genocide or a Holocaust.
Most foreboding is that government officials and bodies are succumbing to (or themselves contributing to) the pressure of the steady drip of hate against Jews. Just this week, it was reported the US Coast Guard will no longer consider the swastika a hate symbol and Mayor Mamdani refused to condemn a hateful protest in front of a Manhattan synagogue holding an Aliyah event, instead calling into question the synagogue for holding the event. In Europe, boycotts of Israel have shifted from fringe activism to state-endorsed policy, with the attempt by several countries, including the Netherlands, Ireland, and Spain, to bar Israel from the Eurovision song contest. These public pronouncements, ostensibly aimed at Israel’s policies, are merely the visible tip of a growing iceberg: silent and not-so-silent boycotts of Jewish and Israeli artists, writers, and academics spreading, largely out of public view.
These developments may have long-term consequences for Jews worldwide, with two possible scenarios – one bad, the other worse.
In the first, the anti-Israel tailwind from the Gaza war subsides somewhat, but the distaste toward Israel — and Jews — persists. The environment Jewish students had to tolerate on liberal campuses for the last decade becomes part of mainstream life, especially in liberal cities, where most Jews live. But the Jewish community is able, for the most part, to ward off antisemitism from permeating government. Life becomes uncomfortable, but not intolerable, and the Jewish experience in the US, Canada or Australia comes to resemble the Jewish experience in France over the last decade.
In the second, antisemitism – particularly in the guise of anti-Zionism – remains at current levels and even increases, driven by its own momentum. In some countries, Jews – already marginalized in academia and the arts – will come to face more widespread and systemic discrimination, and assaults (physical and verbal) against Jews (from both the right and the left) will become commonplace. Antisemitism will permeate government – and by extension, law enforcement. (Imagine life for Jews under a hypothetical UK Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn or US President Mamdani, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez). Jews will move their religious practice – not to mention support for Israel – underground, and migration (mainly to Israel) will increase. Washington ceases to be Israel’s strategic ally, weakening Israel. The situation in some countries in the West will come to resemble that of Jews beyond the Iron Curtain in the Soviet era.
The coming year will demonstrate whether, without the excuse of a war in Gaza, the trend in antisemitism is reversible. Yet the damage may already be too deep, and the sources of disaffection too entrenched, to avoid long-term consequences. The Golden Age for Jews in America may be over, and we may be just at the beginning – rather than the end – of this decline.
