How to help Europe’s Jews as they face record levels of antisemitism

It should surprise no-one but disappoint everyone that the world’s oldest hatred is alive and well in Europe. Jews have a long history of persecution on the continent and in 2025 that manifests itself both online and offline, in new ways and ancient.

Concerns have led many to conceal their Jewish identity, according to the latest survey by the EU’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), published in July 2024, and while the European Union and some member states have implemented measures to combat antisemitism, further efforts are still needed.

It is well known that conflict in the Middle East involving Israel increases incidents of antisemitism abroad and this is no less true of Europe, where Jewish diaspora communities routinely need to increase security when Israel goes to war. For many, this might mean having to ‘keep a low profile’. The head of Porto’s Jewish community says he now wears a bulletproof vest when taking his child to school.

In its report titled Jewish People’s Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism, 96% of Jewish respondents reported experiencing antisemitism (also known as anti-Jewish racism) in the past year, 80% believed the situation had deteriorated, half felt concerned for their (or their family’s) safety, and more than 70% admitted to occasionally hiding their Jewish identity.

War comes to Europe

This is the third such survey conducted by the FRA since 2012 and modest progress has been made, thanks in part to EU strategies to combat antisemitism, but these gains are now at risk, as events in the Middle East spillover into European streets.

On 11 October 2023, just days after the Hamas attack, the EU warned of legal sanctions if tech firms failed to remove any pro-Hamas content on social media platforms. On 1 November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun, a network for Palestinian prisoner solidarity. Later that month, German police raided 15 sites linked to members and supporters of Samidoun and Hamas.

As the war in Gaza continues, attacks against Jews have reached unprecedented levels, as have attacks on Muslims and Arabs, driven by strong emotions on all sides. In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) documented almost 28 antisemitic incidents per day, including assault, vandalism, and harassment, marking a 315% increase compared to the same period last year.

Pull Quote: On 11 October 2023, just days after the Hamas attack, the EU warned of legal sanctions if tech firms failed to remove any pro-Hamas content

Several reasons help to explain the rise in antisemitism linked to the war in Gaza, not least a proliferation of anti-Israel content on social media platforms such as TikTok, where videos quickly attract millions of views, fostering anti-Israel sentiment that in turn fuels antisemitic acts or hate speech.

Some scholars cite a fading collective memory of the horrors of the Holocaust, with today’s younger generation seeing Jews not as victims of discrimination but as beneficiaries of ‘white privilege’ who perpetuate oppression. This extends to perceptions of Israeli Jews as ‘oppressors” of Palestinians.

The rise of the far-right is another factor. The Southern Poverty Law Centre’s Cassie Miller has characterised today’s right-wing as a loose, decentralised conglomeration of groups—ideal for exploiting the loose, decentralised nature of social media, where a ban on one platform simply leads to a reappearance on another.

“Social media platforms, unwittingly or not, have facilitated antisemitism, and are therefore implicated in the violence that emanates from it,” says Miller. Yet antisemitic content is only a tiny fraction of total traffic. One major survey found it to be as little as 0.00015%. “The bulk of evidence points to antisemitic content being much less visible on social media than commonly perceived,” says Michael Bossetta, a researcher at Sweden’s Lund University.

Assessing progress

Governments, civil society organisations, and faith community representatives gathered in Helsinki in February this year at the annual Conference on Addressing Antisemitism in the OSCE Region, with 2025 marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“As the living memory of the Holocaust fades, we have a profound responsibility to commemorate the victims of this atrocity and to understand its ongoing meaning and consequences,” said Elina Valtonen, a Finnish minister who chairs the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) recently published updated guidance on preventing antisemitism in response to increasing antisemitic incidents. It covered key areas such as policies, institutional coordination, education, protection of Jewish communities, and prosecution of offenders.

ECRI is one of several organisations to recommend the use of a definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) as a non-legal tool to better identify antisemitic expressions. This definition includes several working examples that relate to Israel.

Pull Quote: New ECRI guidance on preventing antisemitism covers policies, institutional coordination, education, protection of Jewish communities, and prosecution of offenders

For many of Europe’s Jews who face death threats or who are accused of being perpetrators of genocide, the continent’s policies to combat antisemitism are failing to make a difference in the real world, yet according to the official EU strategy, implementation is set to continue through to 2030.

Expressions of antisemitic hatred (whether online or offline) that incite violence or hatred are considered to be criminal offences under the EU Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia, yet in recent years, online antisemitism has surged, with conspiracy theories, stereotypes, and disinformation.

New thinking needed

For Jewish policymakers, innovative approaches are needed to combat online antisemitism and digital hate speech. Yet different states and different online platforms take different approaches. In some corners of the internet, Nazi-era symbols, memorabilia, and literature are openly sold, despite their sale or display possibly constituting hate speech under some national laws.

Big tech firms are being engaged. Building on the EU Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online, such partnerships seek to prevent the spread and monetisation of antisemitic and extremist content.

By October, 23 of the EU’s 27 member states had developed national strategies to combat antisemitism, according to the European Commission’s first progress report on the EU Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life. The IHRA definition of antisemitism had been adopted by 25 member states

Adopting standalone strategies were Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden, whereas antisemitism-specific measures were contained within broader strategies on racism, extremism, or human rights in Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and Slovakia.

The EU strategy includes social media, the protection of public spaces and places of worship, research into contemporary antisemitism, and Holocaust remembrance. Furthermore, the European Commission condemned the attack by Hamas and expressed full solidarity with Israel, but events in the Middle East since October 2023 have changed the context and the threat level.

Education and technology

Many believe antisemitism is best addressed through education. To this end, a project will be funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ programme for education, training, youth, and sport, which will be implemented by the United Nations’ Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), which promotes peace and security through international cooperation in education.

Pull Quote: By October last year, 23 of the EU’s 27 member states had developed national strategies to combat antisemitism

The project involves a series of tailored activities with national authorities from EU member states to assist in the development of the educational aspects of their National Plans to Combat Antisemitism, with Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany (Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein), Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, and Spain all having signed up.

The result could include reviewing national curricula and facilitating training events for teacher trainers, policymakers, and civil society organisations, involving thematic online webinars to empower teachers and educators to address conspiracy theories, prejudice, extremist narratives, and Jew hatred in the classroom.

While EU strategies have made modest progress in combating antisemitism, the persistence of hate crimes shows that policies need to be more robust and multifaceted, integrating both prevention and response mechanisms, with more resources allocated to enforcement.

For many, technology companies need to devote more time and attention to monitoring, identifying, and removing antisemitic content in a timely manner, with possible legal reforms to impose accountability, while strategies need to integrate educational, digital, legal, and community elements.

Anger directed at Europe’s Jews over Israeli action in Gaza is being exploited by the far-right and extremist Islamist movements, for whom antisemitism is in their DNA. This makes Europe’s efforts to curb antisemitism even more urgent, with security and intelligence cooperation required to address it.

For Europe’s Jews, who fear to show their Jewish identity in public for fear of being attacked, action from national leaders and tech firms cannot come soon enough.

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*By Jassim Mohammed, a researcher in international security and terrorism in Bonn
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