As the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp on Monday, the world’s oldest hatred is again on the rise.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed the United Nations in honor of the solemn anniversary on Monday, saying the “moral beacon” of the U.N. had “been eroded time and again.”
Speaking to a packed General Assembly Hall, he asked, “How is it possible that international institutions, established as an anti-Nazi alliance, allow murderous antisemitic views to flourish unhindered, in the shadow of the greatest massacre of Jews since World War II? How is it possible that those institutions that were established in the wake of the greatest genocide in history – the Holocaust – distort the definition of ‘genocide’ in favor of one and only goal: attacking the State of Israel and the Jewish people; while embracing the despicable phenomenon of ‘reversing the Holocaust.’”
GLOBAL RISE IN ANTISEMITISM LEAVES JEWISH COMMUNITY ISOLATED, RABBI SAYS WORLD AT ‘A TIPPING POINT’
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during the Holocaust memorial ceremony at the United Nations in New York on Jan. 27, 2025. (Lev Radin/Sipa USA/Sipa via AP Images)
Herzog added that “antisemitism, barbarism, cruelty, and racism” thrive at the U.N. because “too many of the nations represented here – do not confront them, do not unanimously condemn them, and do not fight against them.”
A recent report released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found in its latest Global 100 survey that 46% of the world’s 2.2 billion adults “harbor deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,” a number “more than double” what the ADL recorded through the survey in 2014.
The ADL survey reflects the percentage of adults queried who “answered ‘definitely true’ or ‘probably true’ to six or more of the 11 negative stereotypes about Jews that were tested.” Responses ranged from 5% in Sweden and 8% in Norway, Canada, and the Netherlands, to 97% in Kuwait, the West Bank and Gaza.
Seventy-six percent of respondents in the Middle East and Africa, 51% in Asia, and 49% in Eastern Europe were found to agree with most antisemitic tropes surveyed. Though the respondents living in the Americas (24%), Western Europe (17%) and Oceania (20%) expressed less agreement with antisemitic statements, countries in these regions have seen tremendous incidents of violent antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023.
Antisemitic hate on display at an anti-Israel protest in London. (Campaign Against Antisemitism on X)
In response to growing problems in the U.S., some in the American Jewish community have begun looking for safety outside the country. Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption, according to media reporting, said 3,340 Americans had immigrated to Israel as of September 2024. This represents a more than 30% increase from the 2,479 Americans who immigrated to Israel in 2023.
Nuri Katz, founder of Apex Capital Partners, has helped clients procure citizenship through investment for 32 years. Over the last five years, Katz told Fox News Digital that his Jewish client base expanded due to record levels of antisemitism inside the U.S. “American Jews are scared of being stuck and not being able to leave, just like many of their forefathers were stuck in Europe after the beginning of World War II,” he explained.
Katz said a popular choice among his Jewish clients is citizenship through investment in small Caribbean countries like St. Kitts and Antigua.
Though a long-awaited ceasefire and partial hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas is underway, the state of antisemitism around the world could be difficult to rein in.
A Jewish man was shot in the shoulder in Chicago in an antisemitic hate crime. (Fox 32 Chicago)
Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of Orthodox Union, told Fox News Digital, “It will certainly take time for the world to get the distortions of the past year and a half out of their mind.” He emphasized that “the Jewish people, the Israeli government, the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, have been waiting for the day when they can stop the fight, when they can start just building everybody’s future in a positive way, and being able to go back to working on providing the world with solutions to problems. And we’re very, very eager to get back to that.”
In the meantime, “elevated security costs are everywhere in the Jewish community,” Hauer said, explaining that some refer to the expense as “the antisemitism tax.” As a congregational rabbi in the 1990s, Hauer said, “Security in the synagogue meant the last person out should turn the button on the lock.” Today, he said, “Security committees are the most active committees in most synagogues.”
The United Nations building in New York City, Sept. 19, 2023. (Julia Bonavita for Fox News Digital)
The cost is “way more than the significant dollars” spent on security, Hauer said. “The cost is that the energy and the resources which faith communities should be investing in strengthening family and strengthening community… is being diverted” to turn “communal Jewish homes into fortresses.”
As a note of “good news,” Hauer said the hate emanating from “mass protests has, thank God, improved,” adding, “And that speaks to the better nature of the masses of both leaders and responsible people in this country, as well as the citizens.”
“We are hopeful,” he said, explaining that America has “a sometimes too-silent majority that despises the acts of hate which are being committed against anybody.” Hauer also added that the country “has to correct itself.”
With only some of the remaining hostages slated to be released at present, the time for relief has yet to arrive.
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Hauer called on a dichotomous mixture of hope and dismay in a press release about long-awaited hostage transfers. “We rejoice with the hostages who are being released, and we weep with those remaining in the hands of Hamas,” Hauer said.
“We are grateful that the new administration worked with the old to bring the necessary pressure to bear on Hamas, but we are incensed that the world has allowed this to go on for so long. We are grateful to President Trump for moving quickly to bring freedom to many, but we will not forget for even a moment the many who remain. There should still be hell to pay,” Hauer said.
