All posts tagged: antisemitism

Canada is failing the Jewish community and Jews are being targeted, Prime Minister Carney says

Canada is failing the Jewish community and Jews are being targeted, Prime Minister Carney says

Published by Sam Flores

TORONTO (AP) — Canada is failing Jewish Canadians and the community is being brutally targeted by hate, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday. Carney said across Canada, antisemitism has surged to levels not seen in the post-World War II era. He noted that last year over two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes were directed at Jewish Canadians. Jews make up only 1% of the population. “The horror and shame are global. Our actions must be local. They start with clearly admitting that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” Carney said at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Carney said antisemites in Canada have fired bullets at Jewish schools and thrown firebombs at synagogues and attacked community centers. He said they have targeted Jewish-owned businesses and drove Jewish students from common spaces on university campuses. Carney said antisemitism plagues Europe, Australia and the United States. But he said the crisis of antisemitism in Canada is “specific, severe and demands a targeted response.” There has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents globally since the Israel-Hamas war …

Europe’s stained glass is stained with antisemitism

Europe’s stained glass is stained with antisemitism

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — I have done my share of traveling in Europe, and when I am there, I visit cathedrals. Most are majestic, and they are filled with Christian art that would take a decent docent a decade to unpack for me. I have never been to Brussels, though I would like to visit. And when I am there, I expect to make a special trip to the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. That is the subject of Flora Cassen’s new book, “Stained Glass: A Reflective History of Antisemitism.” The cathedral is, by all accounts, a masterpiece. Built between the 13th and 15th centuries, it rises above the old town on its own little hill, and when the lights hit the stonework at night, it looks like lace carved out of sky. “Stained Glass: A Reflective History of Antisemitism” by Flora Cassen. (Courtesy image) But I imagine myself stepping inside. I would look intensely and intentionally at the stained-glass windows — the ones donated by Belgium’s first two kings in the 19th century. And …

Australia, don’t conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel | Racism

Australia, don’t conflate anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel | Racism

Published by Sam Flores

Suggestions that criticism of the State of Israel is anti-Semitic in Australia risk hardwiring a dangerous confusion. Questioning the behaviour of a foreign state is not the same as denigrating or attacking a people who may have links with that state. The State of Israel is represented by its embassy in Canberra, not by the Jewish community in our cities and suburbs. But the knee-jerk reaction to the attack on a Jewish celebration in Sydney is solidifying that confusion. On December 14, 2025, as Jewish families gathered near Sydney’s Bondi Beach to celebrate Hanukkah, two gunmen opened fire, killing 15 people and injuring many others in one of the worst attacks in Australia’s history. In response, the federal government set up a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, led by former High Court justice Virginia Bell. On April 30, 2026, the commission delivered its interim report, raising serious concerns about how we define anti-Semitism. The commission has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The IHRA offers examples that include …

Mamdani skipped NYC’s Israel Day Parade. Supporters say he missed the point.

Mamdani skipped NYC’s Israel Day Parade. Supporters say he missed the point.

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK (RNS) — An estimated 60,000 marchers and more than 100,000 spectators gathered on Fifth Avenue on Sunday (May 31) for New York City’s Israel Day Parade, an annual event that has drawn criticism from those who oppose Israel’s military actions and government. By not attending the event, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian activist and staunch critic of Israel, became the first sitting New York City mayor since the parade’s founding in 1964 to skip it.  The parade’s supporters say participation is foremost about supporting the New York Jewish community — which has faced escalating antisemitic incidents since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war in Gaza — rather than the actions of the Israeli government. The city is home to the largest population of Jews outside of Israel. Several other state and city leaders joined in the festivities and gave speeches, including Gov. Kathy Hochul and former NYC mayors Michael R. Bloomberg and Eric Adams. Jessica Tisch, the city’s Jewish police commissioner, was a marshal. “What an incredible display of unity, …

The Uncomfortable Truth About Roald Dahl’s Anti-Semitism

The Uncomfortable Truth About Roald Dahl’s Anti-Semitism

Published by Sam Flores

The malefactors in Roald Dahl’s fiction are easy to spot. “If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face,” the author writes in The Twits. “And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.” Miss Trunchbull, the abusive headmistress of Matilda, is a “gigantic holy terror” with “an obstinate chin, a cruel mouth and small arrogant eyes.” Augustus Gloop, the greedy glutton of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is a “big fat boy” who is likened to a dog and a pig. In James and the Giant Peach, the protagonist is oppressed by his “enormously fat” Aunt Sponge, who resembles “soggy overboiled cabbage,” and the “bony” Aunt Spiker, with her “screeching voice and long wet narrow lips.” In Dahl’s children’s books, evil is self-evident and announces itself in crude, stereotypical terms. Giant, a play about Dahl running on Broadway through June, is anything but childish. And although the celebrated writer might be …

Inquiry into antisemitism in Australia condemns online hatred and bigotry targeting witnesses

Inquiry into antisemitism in Australia condemns online hatred and bigotry targeting witnesses

Published by Sam Flores

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The head of an inquiry into antisemitism in Australia on Tuesday said Jewish witnesses who appeared before it are facing online harassment and bigotry and issued a condemnation. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion was created in response to two gunmen allegedly inspired by the Islamic State group slaying 15 people at a Sydney Hanukkah celebration in December. Royal commissions are Australia’s highest form of public inquiry. The commission’s head, former High Court judge Virginia Bell, said Jewish witnesses who testified about their experiences of antisemitism since public hearings began on May 4 have been subjected to online “harassment and intimidation.” “We have received reports from a number of witnesses concerning a dramatic increase in online hate messages after they have given evidence,” Bell said. “Quite what this undiluted level of hatred and bigotry directed towards members of the Jewish community is thought to benefit by those who post these remarks is lost on me,” she added. The commission was recording the “offensive social media posts,” Bell said, and …

Yad Vashem set to open Holocaust education centers in Germany – POLITICO

Yad Vashem set to open Holocaust education centers in Germany – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

As the number of firsthand Holocaust witnesses dwindles, studies show that Holocaust awareness among young Germans is declining. Around 40 percent of Germans ages 18 to 29 do not know that six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, while more than one in 10 said they had never heard of the Holocaust, according to a survey published last year by the Jewish Claims Conference. Politicians in the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) — the country’s most popular political party in recent polls — have at times decried Germany’s culture of remembrance, with extreme-right figures railing against what they call the country’s “guilt cult.” The AfD is particularly strong in the former East Germany, including in the state of Saxony, where a branch of the Yad Vashem center is planned in the city of Leipzig. In the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD aims to gain real political power for the first time since its founding in a regional vote set for September, the party’s platform calls for commemorating German soldiers who died in …

The lesson Southern Jews knew first

The lesson Southern Jews knew first

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Every time I give out my phone number, or every time I call someone, people notice I have a 404 area code. This leads to confusion. They ask me if I live in Atlanta. I tell them I live in New Jersey, but my phone was born in Georgia — almost 25 years ago, when I moved to the state I’ve since left. My Southern area code has clung to me, like the sweat on the brow of a man in Savannah, languishing in the humidity of August. When I reflect on my rabbinical career, I realize I have spent nearly a third of it south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Yes, that includes about 10 years in South Florida — and lest you see South Florida as a mere extension of Long Island, when I moved to Miami in 1981, it still had traces of an old Southern Jewish community. I enjoyed my time in the South. I found the people gracious, the communities strong, and I did good work there. However, I …

To combat polarization, a Houston interfaith group embraces riskier dialogue

To combat polarization, a Houston interfaith group embraces riskier dialogue

Published by Sam Flores

This story is part of RNS’ Love Thy Neighbor series. You can read all the stories here. (RNS) — In the months after Oct. 7, 2023, Shariq Ghani, the 44-year-old Muslim executive director of the Houston-based civic multifaith nonprofit Bridges, began hosting regular, emergency meetings with Jewish and Muslim community partners in the city. Interfaith relations in Texas — like the rest of the country — were tense. As the war in Gaza progressed, reported incidents of anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish hate crimes, discrimination and harassment skyrocketed across the state and the U.S. While such polarization over politics, culture and religion isn’t a new issue facing interfaith collaboration, Ghani said he’s seen it exacerbated since the 2016 elections, and again after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, and the ensuing Gaza and Iran wars. He wanted Bridges — founded by Muslim Texans 16 years ago amid rising prejudice after 9/11 — to work with its partners to find ways of maintaining dialogue when old models were failing and fewer people were reaching across political, religious and cultural barriers, he …

Uncovering coded antisemitism online takes both human expertise and AI automation

Uncovering coded antisemitism online takes both human expertise and AI automation

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — This article includes examples of antisemitic hate speech. The men accused of carrying out high-profile antisemitic attacks in the United States in recent years shared an important characteristic: They posted hate speech on their social media accounts beforehand. The FBI said the man who drove his truck into a synagogue outside Detroit in March 2026 posted on Facebook that “Israel is a cancerous/malignant growth” and “Israel is pure evil.” The online footprint of the gunman charged with shooting and killing two Israeli Embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum in May 2025 contained anti-Israel comments. The shooter sentenced to death for killing 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018 frequently used antisemitic hate speech in his social media. Hate speech uses feelings, emotions and attitudes that seek to dehumanize individuals or groups. At times, animosity is clear. But it can also take a more hidden form, using code words or terms understood only by like-minded people. Coded hate speech can evade online content censors and recruit …