Antisemitism has been rapidly increasing in the United States in recent years. According to a recent survey of 1,334 American Jews conducted in 2020 by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a leading global Jewish advocacy organization, 9 out of 10 American Jews believe antisemitism is a problem in the United States. More than 4 out of 5 American Jews reported believing that antisemitism has increased over the past 5 years.

More than one-third of those surveyed reported personally experiencing antisemitism over the last five years. “Notably, younger respondents—American Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 and between 30 and 49—were more likely than older respondents to have been targets of antisemitism, four out of ten (41%) saying they’ve been victims of an antisemitic incident, compared to 31% of those over 50.” The AJC further reported that increasing antisemitism on college campuses primarily accounted for this difference.

The study also found that more than 37 percent of participants said they sometimes try to conceal their Jewish identity to avoid being targets of antisemitism. One-third said they sometimes avoid places and situations out of fear of being targeted for being Jewish. Comparably, 55 percent of Orthodox Jews surveyed said they avoid places and situations for that reason.

Unfortunately, the American Jewish perception of antisemitism as reported by the AJC reflects the actual state of antisemitism in the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish non-governmental organization, 2019 saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the United States since the organization began tracking in 1979. “[It] was a year of unprecedented antisemitic activity, a time when many Jewish communities across the country had direct encounters with hate,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL.

According to the ADL report, 2,107 antisemitic incidents were reported in 2019, averaging 6 antisemitic incidents per day. Those incidents fall into 3 categories: harassment, vandalism, and assault. There were 1,127 incidents of harassment, 919 incidents of vandalism, and 61 incidents of assault, a 56 percent increase from the previous year. Of the incidents of vandalism and property damage, 756 of the occurrences included the drawing of swastikas on Jewish property. Of the assault incidents, 95 Jewish people were harmed, and 5 were murdered. Many of the incidents specifically targeted Jewish synagogues and community centers, including the shooting in the Chabad center of Poway, California, which resulted in Lori Kaye’s death, a 60-year-old Jewish woman who at the time was mourning her mother’s death.

The ADL report found that the incidents occurred in 48 states, with no occurrences in Hawaii and Alaska. “The states with the highest numbers of incidents were New York: 430; New Jersey: 345; California: 330; Massachusetts: 114; and Pennsylvania: 109. These states combined account for nearly 45 percent of the total number of incidents,” the ADL reported. More than half of the antisemitic assaults took place in the 5 boroughs of New York City, including 25 in Brooklyn alone.

Today, the current state of antisemitism in Latin America is not as bad as it is in other parts of the world. However, in the past, Argentine antisemitism was much worse because many Nazi refugees fled to Argentina after World War II. More than 250,000 Jews now live in Argentina and have integrated into Argentina’s society and politics.

On July 18, 1994, Argentina suffered the vilest terrorist attack of any Jewish community in the world. Terrorists bombed the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA—Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires. A van loaded with explosives was detonated, killing eighty-seven individuals and injuring more than one hundred. To this day, nobody has apprehended the perpetrators, and it took almost twenty-one years for Argentina’s parliament to vote to compensate victims and their relatives. In a well-known incident, the Jewish prosecutor, who sought to demonstrate a link between Iran, the attacks on the AMIA building, and a former president, was assassinated. Authorities are still investigating this allegation.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, only eighteen percent of Argentina’s population harbors antisemitic sentiments. “Latin America has not seen the physically violent antisemitism that other parts of the world have experienced through terrorist attacks,” says Ariel Seidler of the Latin American Jewish Congress. “There are antisemitic incidents, but in general Jewish communities can freely practice their faith.” Ariel Gelblung of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Latin America claims that antisemitism in Latin America is “nowhere near what Jewish communities are experiencing in Europe and the United States.”

Brazil has large Jewish communities in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, and thankfully there have been no significant antisemitic demonstrations or attacks in recent years. Most evangelical pulpits in Brazil preach a debt of love and support for Israel. Brazil’s current president claims to be a born-again Christian, as do many members of parliament. This tremendous evangelical presence is openly supportive of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

The most vociferous antisemitic attacks are currently taking place in Chile. Although the Jewish population is only about 15,000, Chile has almost 500,000 people who identify as Palestinian. They represent one of the largest Palestinian populations outside of the Middle East, and they openly attack Israel and the Jewish people, albeit only verbally.

Venezuela once had 20,000 Jewish people, but since the socialist takeover by Hugo Chavez in 1998, fewer than 2,000 Jews have remained in the country; most of them have emigrated to Argentina and Colombia.

Uruguay has always been a beacon of tolerance, and although small in comparison to its giant neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, its economic stability has always attracted Jewish immigration. Its most severe antisemitic attack occurred in 2016 when an Islamist murdered David Fremd. The police investigation found antisemitic material downloaded from the Internet on the perpetrator’s computer. However, there have been no antisemitic attacks against the growing Hasidic population or any other less visible Jewish institution or persons in Uruguay.

Compared to other regions of the world, Latin America has not experienced a significant increase in antisemitic activity. Hopefully, it will stay this way. However, instability in the Middle East, the unresolved Palestinian situation, and the annexation of portions of the West Bank and the Golan Heights could be the spark that, at a moment’s notice, ignites opposition against Israel and the Jewish people in Latin America.

Over the last two decades, we have witnessed a resurgence of global antisemitism. Though repackaged and repurposed, it continues targeting Jewry worldwide. The perpetrators have changed, but the victims remain the same. Even within the “New Antisemitism,” we often see a role reversal where the Jewish people and Israel are painted as the perpetrators while the world views the real perpetrators as victims.

Europe has been a hotbed of antisemitism for a long time. Even though there seemed to be some respite from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1960s, “the longest hatred” is in full force again. About seventy-three percent of European Jews choose to hide their Jewish identity because of fear of antisemitism.

In very recent years, France has seen the death of more than a dozen Jewish people on multiple occasions, not to mention the myriad of tombstone defacements and various property damages at synagogues. In one case, a Jewish woman was thrown out of her Paris apartment window, to her death, simply because she was Jewish. France still has the largest Jewish community in the diaspora (460,000) outside of the United States, but it is decreasing. About 50,000 Jews have left France in the last thirty years, many of them to become citizens of Israel.

The United Kingdom (300,000) is also a dangerous place for a Jewish person in the twenty-first century. There has been a long struggle within the British Labour Party to tame, if not silence, its former leader Jeremy Corbyn from dispensing his antisemitic vitriol. Considered to be a very safe place for Jews after World War II, the United Kingdom is seeing such a rise in antisemitic incidents that British Jews are also leaving for Israel. A ray of hope is the fact that Holocaust education remains compulsory in British schools.

Germany, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Spain, and many other European countries share in the guilt of rampant antisemitism. Not all incidents are reported, and many are often wrongly categorized to minimize the situation’s gravity and ignore their antisemitic nature.

We might be seventy-five years past Nazi Germany, yet our people are still at risk. We need to educate ourselves, educate others, speak up, and stand up for Israel and the Jewish people. Today, as Christians, we have a biblical mandate to love Israel and pray for our Jewish friends and loved ones. Though antisemitism will not go away, our God is bigger, and He is certainly not finished with Israel!