{"id":123686,"date":"2025-05-22T22:39:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T22:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/123686\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T22:39:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T22:39:08","slug":"the-rise-of-antisemitism-and-political-violence-in-the-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/123686\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Antisemitism and Political Violence in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

Cases of antisemitism and hate crimes towards Jewish Americans have surged in recent years, particularly since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that in the three months following the start of the war, antisemitic incidents in the U.S. skyrocketed by 361%.<\/a> And the impact continues to be felt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the State of Antisemitism in America 2024<\/a> report, published in February 2025, 33% of American Jews said they have been the personal target of antisemitism, in-person or virtually, at least once over the past year. Meanwhile, 56% of American Jews said they altered their behavior out of fear of antisemitism in 2024. A notable increase from 46% in 2023 and 38% in 2022.<\/p>\n

Mark Oppenheimer, a professor of practice at Washington University and editor of Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera, says there has been a “sharp rise” in incidents of violence towards Jewish Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost incidents of antisemitism are not incidents of physical violence. However, we shouldn’t be surprised that in a climate where all kinds of hatred and harassment are being normalized, eventually it spills over into deadly violence. It\u2019s horrifying,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

One such case of deadly violence being linked to antisemitism is the killing of two Israeli embassy staff in Washington, D.C.,<\/a> on Wednesday, May 21. Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a couple expected to soon be engaged, were leaving the Capital Jewish Museum, after attending an event hosted by the American Jewish Committee, when they were fatally shot.<\/p>\n

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) arrested Elias Rodriguez at the scene. One witness told CNN<\/a> that she heard Rodriguez say \u201cI did it for Gaza\u201d and \u201cFree Palestine.\u201d On Thursday, Rodriguez\u2014a 31-year-old from Chicago\u2014was charged with first-degree murder and other crimes. Jeanine Pirro, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., called it \u201ca death penalty-eligible case\u201d during a press conference.<\/p>\n

\"Israel'sYaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were employees of the Israeli embassy. IsraelinUSA\/X\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n

In September 2024, FBI data showed<\/a> that anti-Jewish hate crimes had increased by 63% since 2023. Despite Jewish Americans making up just 2% of the U.S. population, reported single-bias anti-Jewish hate crimes made up 15% of all reported hate crimes in 2023 and 68% of all reported religion-based hate crimes.<\/p>\n

Talking to TIME, experts highlighted three key areas they say have contributed to the rise in antisemitism in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The detrimental impact of social media<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rise of reported antisemitic incidents in the U.S. has followed a wider trend. According to ADL, surveys show that \u201canti-Jewish sentiments are at an all-time high globally<\/a>.\u201d A report published in January 2025 found that 46% of the world’s adult population \u201charbors deeply entrenched antisemitic attitudes,\u201d equating to an estimated 2.2 billion people worldwide.<\/p>\n

In a reversal of previous trends, younger Americans are showing higher rates of endorsing anti-Jewish tropes. In 2024, ADL surveyed <\/a>that younger Americans were more likely to endorse anti-Jewish tropes, with the highest rate among millennials. Baby boomers had the lowest rate regarding this type of endorsement.<\/p>\n

The rise of antisemitism among younger Americans<\/a> coincides with the rise of antisemitic hate speech being shared on social media<\/a> platforms such as TikTok<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>, which tend to be more popular among younger age groups.<\/p>\n

Oppenheimer says that there has been a decline of historical knowledge regarding humanities, Judaism, and the State of Israel, with people instead getting their information from social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome students turn to TikTok or Instagram influencers for their understanding of a really complex geopolitical situation. That doesn\u2019t make the students bad people, but it means that we have, as teachers, failed them,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

Popular figures on social media, such as musician Kanye \u2018Ye\u2019 West\u2014who currently has over 33 million followers on X\u2014have repeatedly shared antisemitic views on their platforms<\/a>. Elsewhere, U.S. podcast host Joe Rogan has come under fire<\/a> for having Darryl Cooper\u2014who has been referred to as “a Holocaust denier”<\/a>\u2014on his show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s increasingly acceptable to talk about Jews in broadly stereotypical terms, as Joe Rogan does, as Kanye West does, as Trump has<\/a>,\u201d claims Oppenheimer.<\/p>\n

Some Jewish senators have accused Trump of exploiting antisemitism to target U.S. universities<\/a>, making reference to his threats to defund certain schools following pro-Palestinian campus protests. In April 2025, five Jewish Democratic senators<\/a>, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, accused the Trump Administration of using \u201ca real crisis as a pretext to attack people and institutions who do not agree with you.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Pro-PalestinianPro-Palestinian protestors are pictured in discussions with pro-Israel demonstrators at rallies in Washington, D.C., on July 25, 2024. Mostafa Bassim\u2014Getty Images<\/p>\n

A wider issue with education<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Echoes and Reflections,<\/a> an organization aimed at supporting Holocaust education in the U.S., as of 2025, only 29 states mandate Holocaust education.<\/p>\n

Oppenheimer believes that instead of addressing education on the Holocaust, American society instead needs to focus on improving education on wider Jewish, and other religious, studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that Holocaust education is a poor substitute for a broad humanistic education. I do wish that people knew more about world religions, and about the lives of Jews\u2014and the State of Israel\u2014today,” he says<\/p>\n

\u201cContinuing to offer mediocre or even good lesson plans about the 1940s is not going to make people more thoughtful thinkers about today\u2019s politics,\u201d he argues. \u201cPeople have to understand others. Plenty of people accept the reality of the Holocaust, and then still think all sorts of terrible things about contemporary Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oppenheimer suggests that more funding needs to be allocated to humanity studies in education. Cambridge University found that in 2024<\/a>, only $69 million out of $54 billion worth of federal government funds towards research in U.S. higher education goes to the humanities.<\/p>\n

\"TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-VOTE\"President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, escaping with an injury to his ear on July 13, 2024. Rebecca Droke – Getty Images<\/p>\n

Another alarming incident in 2022 saw the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi subjected to an attack from a man who broke into their home<\/a> and bludgeoned him with a hammer.<\/p>\n

Pamela Nadell, an author and director of the Jewish Studies program at the American University in D.C., says that antisemitism and political violence \u201care both part of the same problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had lots of conversations about \u2018what is the solution?\u2019” she says. \u201cThe Biden Administration issued a national strategy to combat antisemitism<\/a>, but not much of it got implemented.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong>: Former Israeli Prime Minister Says Country\u2019s Action in Gaza is \u2018Close to a War Crime\u2019 <\/a><\/p>\n

Nadell argues that antisemitism is on the rise, in part, due to critiques on Israel that have steered off-course. \u201cThere are so many moments where legitimate criticism of Israel and its conduct of the war has crossed the line into antisemitism when one uses classic antisemitic tropes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cEquating Jews to Nazis has just exacerbated this, opening the path for a man to decide he\u2019s just going to shoot two people leaving an event, who he believes are Jews.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cases of antisemitism and hate crimes towards Jewish Americans have surged in recent years, particularly since the start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[26386,28423,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-123686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-extremism","9":"tag-news-desk","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114553892688885617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}