Antisemitism

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Antisemitism is the enduring bias, prejudice, or discrimination directed against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or cultural group.^[1] It has existed for over two millennia, evolving from theological hostility into legal discrimination, cultural exclusion, and political persecution, and later into modern racial and ideological forms. A scholarly synonym sometimes used is Judeophobia, preferred by some historians who regard “antisemitism” as linguistically or conceptually ambiguous.^[1][2]

Its earliest expressions emerged in religious contexts. In Christendom, antisemitism was fueled by theological doctrines that portrayed Jews as collectively responsible for the death of Jesus or as obstinately rejecting Christian truth, leading to forced conversions, expulsions, and ecclesiastical restrictions.^[3][4] In the Islamic world, Jews and Christians were classified as dhimmi—protected but subordinate non-Muslims who were subject to legal and fiscal restrictions, including the jizya tax, limits on public worship, and forms of social inferiority.^[5][6] These overlapping Christian and Islamic traditions of religious intolerance created the groundwork for later secular antisemitic ideologies.

By the 19th and early 20th centuries, antisemitic ideas were recast through pseudo-scientific racial theories and exclusionary nationalist movements that sought to define identity in ethnic rather than civic terms. These racialized ideologies culminated in the Holocaust, the systematic extermination of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.^[7]

In the contemporary era, antisemitism manifests across ideological, religious, and political divides. It appears in extremist propaganda, conspiracy theories, cultural boycotts, digital disinformation, vandalism, and violence. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) defines antisemitism to include calls for violence against Jews, Holocaust denial, and the application of double standards toward the State of Israel.^[a] Modern surveys by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other research organizations show that antisemitic attitudes persist among large portions of the global population, particularly in regions where religious or ideological hostility toward Jews remains culturally embedded.^[9]

Overview[edit | edit source]

Human history has been marked by recurring expressions of antisemitism, the most catastrophic of which was the Holocaust; the systematic genocide of six million Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II.^[10][11] While violence and exclusion have appeared in many eras—from ancient anti-Jewish polemics to medieval expulsions and modern conspiracy myths—scholars note that the most persistent form of antisemitism across centuries is the belief in Jewish conspiratorial power.^[12][13]

The adjective of antisemitism is antisemitic, and those who espouse such views are called antisemites.^[14]

Contemporary manifestations[edit | edit source]

On January 14, 2025, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a global survey of 58,000 respondents showing that 46% of the world’s adult population—approximately 2.2 billion people—held entrenched antisemitic views.^[9] Among respondents:

^[9][15]

Regarding the Holocaust, only 48% of respondents worldwide recognized its historical accuracy, with the rate dropping to 39% among adults aged 18–34, contradicting the academic claim that younger generations are least prone to prejudice.^[16]

Etymology[edit | edit source]

American historian Deborah Lipstadt and other scholars of antisemitism note that the term antisemitism was coined by German nationalist Wilhelm Marr in his 1879 tract Der Weg zum Siege des Germanenthums über das Judenthum (The Way to Victory of Germanism over Judaism). Marr used the word to give a pseudo-scientific veneer to existing anti-Jewish prejudice, portraying hostility toward Jews as a defense of the “German race” against Jewish “subversion” of German culture.^[17]

Although the root Semite technically refers to a broad family of Middle Eastern peoples and languages, Marr and later German racial theorists applied it exclusively to Jews. Modern scholars and linguistic authorities emphasize that using the term to claim Arabs or other Semitic groups “cannot be antisemitic” is an etymological fallacy that misrepresents the word’s historical and social meaning.^[18][19][20] Semantically, antisemitism cannot be assumed as the prejudice against all Semitic groups, or it would constitute the etymological fallacy (using a word's ancient meaning to make a point about its current meaning).^[21] Moreover, the word covers Jews who practice Judaism, Jews who converted to Christianity and those with traceable Jewish ancestry,^[22][21] all of whom can be victims of antisemitism.^[22][21]

Spelling[edit | edit source]

The term is spelled by some as anti-Semitism, but such spelling is controversial. Historians have pointed out that anti-Semitism is misleading as there is no such an ideology as "Semitism" that can be opposed,^[22][21] while the concept Semites derived from pseudoscientific 19th-century scientific racism.^[22][21]

Lies about Jews[edit | edit source]

Ancient[edit | edit source]

1. Jews killed Jesus^[23][24]
2. Jews betrayed their prophets^[23][24]
3. Jews conspire against Christianity^[25]

Middle Ages[edit | edit source]

1. Jews take blood from Christian babies for rituals (blood libel)^[25][26]
2. Jews worship Satan^[23][24]
3. Jews poison wells to cause epidemics, including the 14th century Black Death^[25][27]

Modern[edit | edit source]

1. Jews control mass media^[25][28]
2. Jews control banks^[25][29]
3. Jews control governments around the world^[30][31]
4. Jews create wars and revolutions around the world^[25][32]

Contemporary[edit | edit source]

1. Jews are rootless cosmopolitans^[33][34]
2. Jews are fake European converts to Judaism descended from the Khazars^[35][36]
3. Jews ran the Atlantic slave trade^[36][37]
4. Jews created the AIDS and COVID-19^[38]

Asia[edit | edit source]

Europe[edit | edit source]

Before 20th century[edit | edit source]

20th Century[edit | edit source]

The Holocaust[edit | edit source]

A poster from the Nazi puppet state Slovak Republic (1939–1945): "Do not be a servant to the Jew: he who associates with a Jew will sink down to his level."

The Holocaust was a genocide^[40] committed by Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 during World War II. It was known as the Final Solution. The Nazis' plan was to rid Europe of Jews. They succeeded in killing up to at least 6,000,000 Jews – 67% of European Jews back then.^[41] The planning of the Holocaust was rooted in antisemitism.^[41][42]

21st century[edit | edit source]

In a 2013 survey of 5,847 Jews in Europe, 76% thought that antisemitism had increased in the previous five years, while 29% had thought about moving countries as they felt unsafe.^[43] A 2023 ADL survey found that as many as one-third of Western Europeans believed in stereotypes of Jews. This was reportedly worse in some Eastern European countries, particularly Hungary (37%), Poland (35%) and Russia (26%).^[44] In Eastern Europe, the level of antisemitism is found to be high.^[45] The cause of persistent antisemitism in Europe is under debate.^[46][47]

France[edit | edit source]

Classical antiquity[edit | edit source]

Jews have been living in France since the Roman times as one of the oldest diasporas in Europe. As France became Christianized in the late antiquity, Christian antisemitism shaped the region's culture.^[48]

Middle Ages[edit | edit source]

Massacre of Jews in Metz – then part of the Holy Roman Empire – in the First Crusade.

Under the Germanic Frankish Merovingian dynasty between the 5th and 8th century, Jews were banned from working as public servants.^[48] A succession of ecumenical councils also banned Jews from socializing with Christians or observing the shabbat over the unfounded fear that Judaism (the Jewish ethnoreligion) would influence Christians.^[48]

Systematic persecutions of Jews intensified in the 11th century under the rule of the House of Capet, when the King of France Robert the Pious attempted to kill all Jews who rejected Christian conversion.^[48][49] Jews across the France were assaulted, tortured or burned at stakes.^[48][49] The persecutions coincided with the destruction of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem by the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009, which was exploited by the French Benedictine monk Rodulfus Glaber to spread rumors about Jewish "involvement" in the destruction.^[50]

First Crusade[edit | edit source]

When the First Crusade happened in 1096, Jews were massacred by the crusaders across the Kingdom of France.^[49][50] The events were seen by some historians as a series of genocidal massacres.^[51] The massacres all happened with the Roman Catholic Church's tacit approval.^[50][51]

Deportations[edit | edit source]

Between the 1182 and 1394, at least 13 expulsions of Jews were ordered by the French monarchy,^[52] during which dozens of Black Death-associated massacres of Jews happened.^[53]

Modern period[edit | edit source]

Between the 15th century and 18th century, antisemitism in France fluctuated.^[54] Voltaire (1694–1778), a famous French philosopher, held bias against Jews that contributed to the normalization of antisemitism in Western academia.^[55][56] One of the instances of Voltaire's antisemitism was his insertion of an insult into his Dictionnaire philosophique for Jewish readers:^[55]

You are calculating animals; try to be thinking animals.

Despite this, he was regarded as the champion of Enlightenment by Western leftists.^[56]

Antisemitism was widespread in 19th century France.^[48] It was present across the political spectrum, with ancient stereotypes being phrased differently and perpetuated by their respective audience.^[57] On both sides of the spectrum, Jews were targeted for their otherness, observance of Judaism and alleged lack of loyalty or assimilation.^[57]

Among the French far left, Jews were accused of being regressive agents of capitalism exploiting the French proletariat.^[57] Among the French far right, Jews were accused of being subversive agents of communism undermining the traditional Catholic culture.^[57] Meanwhile, both the far left and far right saw Jews as undesirable under French nationalism, which prioritized national unity over minority existence.^[57][58]

Between 1882 and 1885, three antisemitic publications existed in France: L'Anti-Juif, L'Anti-Sémitique, and Le Péril sociale.^[48] In 1886, French politician Edouard Drumont published the 1,200-page tract La France juive ("Jewish France"), accusing Jews of masterminding capitalism, and calling for a race war between non-Jewish "Aryans" and Jewish "Semites". The tract was very popular in France and reprinted for 140 times within the first two years of publication.^[55]

The wave of antisemitism peaked in the deeply divisive 1894 Dreyfus affair, when Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jewish artillery officer, was falsely convicted of treason,^[58] who was not vindicated until 1906.^[57][58]

World War II[edit | edit source]

French Jews forced to wear yellow stars in public, Paris, June 1942.

On 22 June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany upon military defeat and was partitioned into the German-occupied zone, Italian-occupied zone and Vichy France – a rump state in southern France managed by pro-Nazi French collaborators.^[59] Under Vichy France's leaders Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, the Statut des Juifs ("Jewish Statute") – modelled after the Nazi German Nuremberg Laws – was passed between October 1940 and June 1941 to ban Jews from all jobs.^[59]

Just as in Nazi Germany, such legal persecution escalated to the deportation of Jews to extermination camps,^[59] one of the worst instances of which was the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup on 16–17 July 1942 voluntarily conducted by the Vichy French police.^[59] In total, 77,000 (33%) Jews living in France were killed in extermination camps.^[41][59]

Post-war[edit | edit source]

Antisemitism in post-war France mainly took the form of Holocaust denial and radical anti-Zionism. Pierre Guillaume, an ultra-left activist seen as an "anarcho-Marxist", published books denying the Holocaust, calling it a "distraction from class struggle playing into the hands of Zionism and Stalinism."^[60]

Guillaume's views were adopted by the French far right,^[60] who have trivialized the Holocaust by comparing the Holocaust to the Judean massacres of the Canaanites^[60] or the Native American genocide,^[61] and accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust to extort compensations from European countries.^[62]

A number of influential French Holocaust deniers emerged, such as Claude Autant-Lara,^[61] Maurice Bardèche,^[62] Louis-Ferdinand Céline,^[63] and Dieudonné M'bala M'bala.^[64]

Antisemitism is still common in 21st century France,^[65] with Jews and synagogues regularly attacked.^[65] A report by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League found a spike in antisemitic incidents from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, 74% of which happened following 7 October 2023.^[66] According to the Statista, 57.4% of 2023 antisemitic incidents happened in Paris.^[67]

One of the most serious antisemitic incidents involved a 12-year-old Jewish girl being gang-raped by several boys hurling antisemitic insults and death threats.^[68] Some French Jews said that they had to adopt fake names and wear keffiyehs in order to stay safe.^[69]

Germany[edit | edit source]

20th century[edit | edit source]

21st century[edit | edit source]

A 2017 Bielefeld University's research reported that those identified with the far left and far right committed roughly the same proportion of antisemitic hate crimes, with most perpetrators found to be individuals of Muslim background.^[70] The research was agreed by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which said that certain Islamist groups' antisemitic rhetoric significantly challenged Germany's peaceful and tolerant society.^[71] In a follow-up EU research in 2018, 41% of antisemitic attacks were found to have been committed by Islamic extremists, 20% by those identified with the far right and 16% by the far left.^[72]

On October 18, 2023, 11 days following the Hamas-led October 7 massacre which killed over 1,200 in a day, a Berlin synagogue was firebombed with molotov cocktails by two masked men.^[73][74][75] Official statistics also showed a rapid rise in antisemitic hate crimes in the months following the October 7 massacre.^[76][77]

On February 2, 2024, a pro-Palestinian Berlin undergraduate beat a Jewish classmate to the point of hospitalization following an argument over the Hamas–Israel war. The German police reported that the Jewish student was punched and kicked repeatedly on the floor, suffering facial fractures.^[78] The victim is the grandson of Amitzur Shapira, an Israeli athletics coach murdered by the Black September terrorists in the Munich massacre.^[78]

In May 2024, some Jewish parents from suburban Berlin transferred their kids to Jewish schools in Mitte, many of which guarded by police and enclosed walls, due to increasing antisemitic violence in Berlin.^[79] In June 2024, a young Israeli couple was assaulted in Berlin's Potsdamer Platz after being heard speaking Hebrew. The suspect shouted abuses, threw a bottle and a chair at them and beat them on the floor.^[80]

On September 5, 2024, the 52nd anniversary of the 1972 Munich massacre, a suspected terrorist opened fire at the Israeli consulate and the neighboring Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism before being shot dead by police.^[81][82] On October 7, 2024, 10 Holocaust memorial stones were torn down. The day coincided with the first anniversary of the October 7, 2023 massacre.^[83]

In February 2025, a Jewish student at the Goethe University in Frankfurt has reportedly become a target of a hate campaign that resulted in physical injuries and death threats, including anonymous messages saying "Inshallah, you will be shot…You should die…Your whole f***ing Israel…"^[84] The victim reportedly filed over 60 police reports, which merely resulted in some of her harassers being fined for €300.^[84] Some of the harassers are reportedly associated with pro-Palestinian protests' organizers,^[84] with little to no condemnation from other left-wing activists.^[84]

Responses[edit | edit source]

In June 2024, the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) reported that there were 4,782 antisemitic incidents in 2023,^[85] an 80% rise as compared to 2022,^[85] most of which happened following the October 7 massacre.^[85] In October 2024, Felix Klein, the German Commissioner for Jewish Life and the Fight against Antisemitism, asserted that "open and aggressive antisemitism has been stronger than at any time since 1945."^[86]

On November 6, 2024, the German lower house of parliament passed a non-binding resolution to pledge the end of funding to groups that "spread antisemitism, question Israel's right to exist, call for a boycott of Israel or actively support the BDS movement."^[87] The resolution enjoyed cross-party support, but faced opposition from MPs of left-wing populist parties like the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and Die Linke (Left Party).^[87]

Meanwhile, the BDS movement itself was designated as antisemitic by the German government in 2019^[88] and a threat of "suspected extremism" by the German intelligence agency in 2024.^[89] On May 20, 2025, the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution called the BDS "hostile to the constitution".^[90] In its report, it stated:^[90]

[t]he anti-constitutional ideology of the BDS campaign, which denies Israel’s right to exist [...] supporters of BDS in Berlin justified and/or glorified the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, 2023 [...] signs with stereotypical antisemitic imagery were repeatedly displayed.

Ireland[edit | edit source]

Overview[edit | edit source]

Ireland has been predominantly Catholic throughout history.^[92] Just as other Catholic countries, antisemitism is deep-rooted in Ireland.^[92]

Modern period[edit | edit source]

Specialized historians said that Irish Catholics played an active role in the Catholic Spanish Inquisition's persecution of Jews (1478–1834),^[93] killing as many as 300,000 Jews over the false charge of "crypto-Judaism",^[94][95] a charge slapped on Jews who were forcibly converted to Christianity under Catholic Spanish rule.^[94][95]

20th century[edit | edit source]

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, pro-Nazi sentiment was common among the Irish due to their dislike of the United Kingdom,^[96] which was fighting Nazi Germany.^[96]

In July 1940, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) praised Nazi Germany as the "friends and liberators of the Irish people" in a statement, with little to no opposition from the Irish public.^[96][97] Meanwhile, the IRA worked with Nazi spies to plot attacks on British troops in Northern Ireland^[96][97] and circulated materials accusing Éamon de Valera's neutral Irish government of being owned by "Jews and Freemasons".^[96][97]

Declassified MI5 documents stated that IRA leading figures Seán Russell and James O'Donovan – both veterans of the Irish War of Independence – were the main Irish contacts with Nazi Germany.^[96][97] They got Nazi weapons, plotted joint attacks on British troops and discussed with Hitler a possible German invasion of Northern Ireland to facilitate Irish "reunification".^[96][97] Russell told a Nazi official:^[98]

The British have been our enemies for hundreds of years. They are the enemy of Germany today. If it suits Germany to give us help to achieve independence, I am willing to accept it, but no more, and there must be no strings attached.

Kurt Haller, an anti-Nazi German diplomat, testified in the Nuremberg Trials:^[97]

James O'Donovan [...] asked for German support for the occupation of Northern Ireland [. ...] seemed most interested in obtaining delivery of weapons, ammunition and explosives.

Erwin von Lahousen, a Nazi German general, also testified:^[97]

Frank Ryan^[b] suggest that the German invasion of Britain would be an opportune moment for the seizure of Northern Ireland [. ...] Ryan had told [Edmund] Veesenmayer^[c] that [Éamon] de Valera would support [...] provided he considered it a legitimate risk to take.

After Hitler's death on April 30, 1945, Éamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of Ireland, mourned his death.^[96][100] De Valera also denied reports of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp as "anti-national propaganda",^[100][101] reportedly out of refusal to acknowledge that the Jews could have suffered more than the Irish.^[100][101]

21st century[edit | edit source]

Since 2013,^[102][103] a baseless theory, which claims that "Irish slaves" existed in 17th century North America before the arrival of African slaves, has been made popular by Neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers^[102][103] in both Ireland and the United States.^[102][103] The theory is sometimes called the "Irish slaves myth". The myth reportedly originated from the book To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland written by Irish journalist Seán O'Callaghan (1918–2000)^[102][104] and published by The O'Brien Press in Dublin, Ireland.^[104]

The myth has been widely condemned by scholars as a far-right conspiracy theory downplaying the suffering of African Americans in history,^[102][103] who were enslaved until 1865, segregated until 1965 and systemically discriminated against until now.^[105] Despite To Hell Or Barbados: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland promoting the widely condemned far-right myth, the book is still on sale in the Sinn Féin Bookshop^[106] run by the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party.^[106][107]

In spring 2024, antisemitism in Ireland reportedly worsened with the escalation of the Israel–Hamas war, where antisemites felt justified to harass Jews under the guise of supporting Palestine, and some Irish Jewish community leaders were doubtful if Ireland was still safe^[108] for the approximately 2,700 Jews – 0.054% of the 2023 Irish population^[109] – in Ireland. In November 2024, it was revealed that textbooks teaching that

• the Jews "killed Jesus"
• Israel was "uniquely aggressive"
• Judaism "believed that violence and war are necessary"
• the Auschwitz was a "prisoner of war camp" rather than an extermination camp

were widely circulated in Irish schools^[110] and shaping children's mind.^[110] The findings were confirmed by the European Jewish Congress (EJC).^[111] Meanwhile, the Government of Ireland has not responded to the matter, nor have any strong reactions been seen from the Irish public.^[110]

Critique[edit | edit source]

David Collier, an Irish researcher in Middle East affairs,^[112] noted that antisemitism among contemporary Irish is derived from^[112]

• Religious antisemitism: Classic Christian belief that "Christians are the new Jews" as "the Jews killed Jesus"
• Political antisemitism:
  • Popularity of the Irish nationalist Sinn Féin party whose founders promoted conspiracy theories about Jews
  • Projection of anti-British sentiment onto Israel^[113] due to the belief that "Britain gave the Jews Israel" is similar to the British settler colonialism in the history of Ireland.^[114][115]

Poland[edit | edit source]

Portugal[edit | edit source]

Romania[edit | edit source]

Holocaust denial under communism (1947–1989)[edit | edit source]

A photo of the antisemitic Romanian communist tyrant^[116][117] Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Under Nicolae Ceaușescu's communist rule,^[116][117] Romania's role in the Holocaust was officially denied. It was blamed on the Germans and Hungarians.^[118] Romanians were taught about the "heroic anti-fascist resistance," with an emphasis on the anti-Nazi battles fought following Romania defection to the Allies. Many former subordinates of Ion Antonescu served in the secret police of Nicolae Ceaușescu^[118] and to help him oppress Romanians.^[116][117]

Meanwhile, Nicolae Ceaușescu reportedly believed in lies about Jews, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and defined Jew as a "money-changer" and an "extortionist" in an official English–Romanian dictionary.^[119]

Holocaust denial in post-communist age (1989 – )[edit | edit source]

Since the fall of Ceaușescu's communist regime,^[116][117] a systematic effort to whitewash the war criminals, especially Ion Antonescu, has been observed by scholars. Antonescu is praised by some so-called historians as a hero who waged a "holy war against Bolshevism."^[118] Acts of Holocaust denial by politicians occurred from time to time, notable of whom include Ion Iliescu, the former President of Romania (2000–2004). He made similar claims to those of Ceaușescu that there was "no Holocaust within Romania" and that the Poles, Jews and communists "were treated equally," while denying the Romanian role in the Holocaust and the verified Romanian Jewish death toll.^[118]

An international inquiry, led by Romanian-American Jewish writer Elie Wiesel, identified all the evidence of Romania's role in the Holocaust. The Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania^[d], a state-funded Holocaust research center, was also founded in 2005.^[120]

In November 2021, the Romanian parliament passed a law, by a large majority, to require the teaching of the Holocaust and Jewish history from 2023. The only group opposing it was the nationalist party Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR). The AUR was condemned by the INSHR.^[121] Since September 2023, the Holocaust and Jewish history have become part of the high school curriculum in Romania.^[122][123]

Slovakia[edit | edit source]

Slovenia[edit | edit source]

Spain[edit | edit source]

Middle Ages[edit | edit source]

The 7th century saw the Catholic Visgothic demanding Jews to convert or leave,^[124] followed by the 12th-century Almohad Caliphate ordering Jews to convert or be killed,^[124] which drove the notable Jewish philosopher Maimonides into exile.^[124] Under Henry III of Castile and León (1390–1406), Jews had to pick either baptism or death in the reconquered Iberia.^[18]

Modern period[edit | edit source]

From 1478 to 1834, the Catholic Spanish Empire unleashed a systematic campaign of persecution of Jews, historically known as the Spanish Inquisition,^[94][95] due to its belief that Jews who converted to Catholicism (conversos) were mostly faking as Christians,^[94][95] including those forcibly converted following the Alhambra Decree, or the Edict of Expulsion.^[94][18]

As many as 300,000 Jews under Catholic Spanish rule were killed over the false charge of "crypto-Judaism",^[94][95] a charge slapped on Jews who were forcibly converted.^[94][95] Some historians saw the Spanish Inquisition as racially motivated,^[94][95] serving as a turning point in the transition of anti-Judaism into antisemitism.^[125]

Between 1939 and 1975, antisemitic conspiracy theories formed the main theme of Francoist propaganda,^[124] especially the charge of "Judeo-Bolshevism" once promoted by Nazi Germany to justify the Holocaust.^[124][126] Isabel M. Peralta, a far-right Spanish figure, said in a 2021 rally that "Zionist and strata of that race [Jews] are the people that control the world," referring to the more common false claim.^[124]

21st century[edit | edit source]

A graffiti on Calle del Doctor Luis Calandre in Cartagena, Spain, where the COVID-19 pandemic was depicted as a corona-mentira ("corona-lie") created by Jews symbolized by the Star of David.

For the past decade, movements within Spain have emerged to rewrite the history of the Spanish Inquisition.^[127] Members of the movements released a series of books, films, TV programs and mobile exhibitions^[127] to beautify the Inquisition-associated Spanish history.^[127]

In 2023, an ADL poll found that 26% of Spain's population held antisemitic beliefs,^[128] followed by Belgium (24%), France (17%), Germany (12%) and the UK (10%).^[128]

In 2024, Spanish Jews make up 0.093% of Spain's population of 48,370,000. In April, the Observatory for Religious Freedom and Conscience found that at least 36 attacks had happened to Spanish Jews between 7 October 2023 and 19 April 2024, about six attacks per month.^[129] In July, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights found that 78% of Spanish Jews saw antisemitism as a big problem in Spain.^[130]

Armenia[edit | edit source]

Overview[edit | edit source]

58% of the population^[39] of Armenia^[131][132] (a Caucassian country allied with Russia,^[133] China,^[134] Iran^[135] and Syria under Bashar al-Assad^[136] who killed over 400,000 Syrians^[137][138]) are found to be hostile to Jews, including 62% of those aged 18–34. The percentages are the highest in Eastern Europe, making Armenia statistically the most antisemitic Eastern European country.^[39] Garegin Nzhdeh (1886–1955), an Armenian nationalist who recruited thousands of Armenians to fight for Nazi Germany, is still popular among Armenians.^[139][140]

20th century[edit | edit source]

A photo of the Armenian nationalist Garegin Nzhdeh (1886–1955), who recruited thousands of Armenians to fight for Nazi Germany.

From the 1930s through the Holocaust, Armenian-American media, including but not limited to the Hairenik,^[142][143] fully backed Adolf Hitler and defended the Holocaust as a "necessary surgical operation" by demonizing Jews as "poisonous elements",^[142][143] while 20,000 Armenian Nazi volunteers^[143][144] hunted for Jews and other "undesirables" on behalf of the Nazi German army.^[143][145]

21st century[edit | edit source]

Garegin Nzhdeh statue in Gyumri, Armenia.

File:Garegin Nzhdeh statue.jpg

Another Garegin Nzhdeh statue in Gyumri, Armenia.

Despite such history, hundreds of statues have been erected across Armenia in honor of Garegin Nzhdeh.^[139][140] Meanwhile, the only synagogue in Armenia's capital Yerevan was attacked four times in a row between 7 October 2023 and 11 June 2024.^[147] Members of the Marxist-Leninist militant^[146] front Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia^[148] (ASALA) claimed responsibility for the attacks, some of which involved the synagogue being set on fire.^[149]

Latin America[edit | edit source]

Since 7 October 2023, a spike in harassment and violence against Jews has also been recorded across Latin America.^[150] According to the Latin American Jewish Congress, 91% of community leaders from several Latin American countries reported that antisemitism had increased since 7 October 2023.^[151]

Hispan TV, the Spanish channel of the antisemitic^[152] Iranian regime's state television Press TV, has reportedly contributed to antisemitism among its 600 million audience in Latin America by promoting the^[153]

• Holocaust denial
• myth of Jews controlling the Hollywood and governments
• perception of the antisemitic^[152] Iranian regime being the "leader of global resistance^[154] movements"

MENA[edit | edit source]

Background[edit | edit source]

The massacre of the Banu Qurayza, a Jewish tribe in Medina, 627 AD.

Jews started living in the Arabian Peninsula in the 6th century BC, when Babylonian Empire's conquest of the Kingdom of Judah forced Jews out of Judea. Successive waves of Jewish exiles – caused by alternating conquests of Judea – made Jews the leading ethnoreligious group^[155] in the Arabian Peninsula, where Judaism stood in contrast to the multi-god religion of ancient Arabs,^[156] many of whom had arrived later than the Jews due to their nomadic nature.^[156]

Middle Ages[edit | edit source]

Jews thrived in the Arabian Peninsula until Muslims conquered the Peninsula, when they, along with other conquered indigenous peoples, were required to pay jizya in exchange for their existence to be tolerated.^[156][157] The payment of jizya granted Jews the status of dhimmi under which they were prohibited – under the threat of execution – from criticizing any aspects of Islam, sharing Jewish ideas to Muslims or touching a Muslim woman.^[158] Jews were also not allowed to^[158]

• drink wine in public
• ride horses or camels
• pray or mourn in loud voices
• build synagogues taller than mosques
• construct houses taller than Muslim houses

21st century[edit | edit source]

2010s[edit | edit source]

Antisemitism is extremely common in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).^[159] In 2011, the Pew Research Center polled a significant number of Middle Eastern countries' citizens, where Muslims are the majority. Most of the interviewees were hostile to Jews. Only 2% of Egyptians, 3% of Lebanese Muslims and 2% of Jordanians reported feeling good about Jews.^[160] Some scholars believe that mass media have played a significant role in such phenomenon.^[161][162] Further data are presented as follows.

Sub-Saharan Africa[edit | edit source]

The % of South Africa's population holding biases against Jews rose to 47% in 2019 from 38% in 2014.^[163] Since the Israel–Hamas war started on 7 October 2023, there has been an upsurge in harassment and violence against Jews in South Africa.^[164][165] Between 7 October and 31 December 2023, attacks on Jews rose by 631% in South Africa as compared to the same period in 2022.^[166]

United States[edit | edit source]

2010s[edit | edit source]

A 2017 survey showed that 14% of Americans were hostile to Jews.^[167] Since the October 7 massacre, antisemitism has surged in America and Europe, especially on college campuses.^[168][169] Such antisemitism has caused thousands of Jewish students to get attacked over their identity.^[168][169]

2020s[edit | edit source]

In August 2024, the advocacy group Combat Antisemitism Movement did a poll which found that around 3,500,000 American Jews had faced antisemitism since the October 7 massacre in 2023. 1,075 American Jews were asked, 28% of whom said that they, often, were told that "Jews care too much about money," 25% were told that "Jews control the world" and 13% were told that "the Holocaust did not happen" or its "severity has been exaggerated."^[170][171] Meanwhile, the FBI released crime statistics illustrating that antisemitic incidents constituted 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in 2023, a 63% rise compared to 2022.^[172]

A follow-up research between May and October 2024 found that American Jews faced rising discrimination in job search, with American Jews having to make 24% more applications to receive the same amount of favorable first responses as Western European Americans, while Israeli Americans having to make 39% more applications to receive the same amount of such.^[173][174]

In December 2024, the University of Michigan fired its DEI^[175] director for making antisemitic remarks, including "the university is controlled by wealthy Jews"^[176] and "we don’t work with Jews. They are wealthy and privileged..." according to documents obtained by the CNN.^[177] Meanwhile, DEI training in American academia and healthcare settings has also been criticized by scholars and officials for encouraging antisemitism by instilling into students a binary worldview that misclassifies Jews as "White oppressors",^[175][178] despite Jews being the most oppressed people in history^[41] who suffered 68% of religion-based hate crimes in America in 2023.^[172]

Select antisemitic incidents in the U.S.[edit | edit source]

  Fatal incidents

Internet[edit | edit source]

Antisemitism is common on the most visited websites worldwide,^[332] including Wikipedia,^[333][334] Reddit^[335] and Instagram.^[336][337] On January 23, 2025, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance said in a press release that a UNESCO study found 16% of all Holocaust-related content across social media to be denying or distorting.^[338][339] On January 27, 2025, the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Cloudfare said that they had stopped over 47 million cyberthreats against Jewish and Holocaust education websites,^[340] noting that the cyberthreats were associated with "a troubling resurgence of antisemitism [...] spilled into the digital realm".^[340]

Wikipedia[edit | edit source]

Croatian Wikipedia[edit | edit source]

Between 2009 and 2021, Croatian Wikipedia was controlled by a group of far-right administrators who promoted Holocaust denial by censoring^[333] the war crimes of the pro-Nazi Ustaše-ruled Independent State of Croatia^[341] and blocking dozens of rule-abiding users for trying to remove the false content.^[333]

Željko Jovanović, the Minister of Science of Croatia back then, also advised against the use of the Croatian Wikipedia.^[342] The most serious violation by the far-right administrators was their anti-historical designation of the Jasenovac concentration camp, in which 77,000–99,000 were killed,^[343] as a "collection camp".^[333] Their Holocaust denial was condemned by scholars, officials, advocacy groups and media critics.^[333]

Following a year-long investigation (2020–21) by the Wikimedia Foundation, several complicit users and administrators were either banned or demoted, with one of the administrators found to have consolidated his or her power with 80 sockpuppet accounts.^[344]

English Wikipedia[edit | edit source]

The English Wikipedia was criticized for condoning the systematic whitewashing of Nazi war criminals in thousands of WWII-related articles.^[345] For instance, Arthur Nebe, a senior SS official who invented mobile gas chambers to kill Jews, was portrayed as a savior of Jews based on distortion of a cited source that actually said the opposite,^[345] while false claims of Nazi war criminals "opposing" Hitler were made.^[345] SS units responsible for the Holocaust were either depicted as brave fighters or described in passive voice to make their atrocities look normal.^[345]

Those who corrected the false content had also faced persistent harassment from pro-Nazi users, some of whom were found to have repeatedly cited materials from Holocaust-denying sources (e.g. Journal of Historical Review, Nation Europa and Franz Kurowski^[345]) misrepresented them as academic consensus and gamed the rules to prevent the removal of such content.^[345] The violations continued for years with limited administrative intervention,^[345] which mainstreamed Nazi sympathy among young readers and hurt efforts to preserve the Holocaust's historical truth.^[345] German military historian Jens Westemeier commented on the issue,^[345]

The English Wikipedia pages are far more sympathetic towards the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS than the German ones [. ...] Wikipedia and Amazon are the worst distributors of pro-Nazi perspectives and the ["clean"] Wehrmacht myth.

In 2023, Holocaust historians Prof. Jan Grabowski and Dr. Shira Klein published a 57-page article titled Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust^[346] in The Journal of Holocaust Research wherein they reported to have found widespread distortion of Poland's Holocaust history on the English Wikipedia,^[334][346] which involved the exaggeration of Jewish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers,^[334][346] invention of Jewish "atrocities" against Poles,^[334][346] downplaying of Polish collaboration with Nazi/Soviet occupiers and blaming Jews for their own suffering in the Holocaust:^[334][346]

Four distortions dominate Wikipedia’s coverage of Polish–Jewish wartime history: a false equivalence narrative suggesting that Poles and Jews suffered equally in World War II; a false innocence narrative, arguing that Polish antisemitism was marginal, while the Poles’ role in saving Jews was monumental; antisemitic tropes insinuating that most Jews supported Communism and conspired with Communists to betray Poles (Żydokomuna or Judeo–Bolshevism), that money-hungry Jews controlled or still control Poland, and that Jews bear responsibility for their own persecution.

Prof. Grabowski and Dr. Klein also criticized English Wikipedia's administrators and the Wikimedia Foundation's lack of will to handle, leaving the site vulnerable to disinformation:^[334][346]

Wikipedia’s administrators have largely failed to uphold Wikipedia’s policies [. ...] unable to deal with the issue of persistent distortion [...] Wikipedia’s articles [...] have become a hub of misinformation and antisemitic canards.

On another occasion, Prof. Grabowski said,^[334]

As a historian, I was aware [...] of various distortions [...] of the Holocaust on Wikipedia. What I found shocking, was the sheer scale [...] and the small number of individuals needed to distort the history of one of the greatest tragedies in the history of humanity.

Some misconceptions about the Holocaust in Poland are summarized as follows:

In 2024, independent journalists uncovered a large-scale off-site canvassing campaign to rewrite Jewish history and reshape the narrative surrounding the Israel–Palestine conflict, which involved 40 accounts having made as many as 2,000,000 edits to around 10,000 Jewish-related articles.^[364]

The off-site canvassing campaign was coordinated by an 8,000-member Tech for Palestine Discord channel,^[364] where the organizers provided the participants in-depth training (e.g. strategy planning sessions, group audio "office hour" chats)^[364] on getting used to Wikipedia's site operation, assigning participants (in groups of 2~3) to edit hundreds of articles in rotation^[364] and gaming the rules to block others from correcting them.^[364]

Reported examples of their revisionist^[365] edits include^[364]

On 12 December 2024, English Wikipedia's arbitration committee announced that two editors^[368] had been site-banned indefinitely for off-site canvassing^[364][368] and "encouraging other users to game the extended confirmed restriction and engage in disruptive editing."^[368] Another three editors have also been sanctioned for similar reasons.^[368] On January 17, 2025, English Wikipedia's arbitration committee further voted to impose indefinite topic-bans on multiple longtime editors associated with the organized campaign.^[369] ADL's CEO Jonathan Greenblatt commented,^[369]

[I]t is now imperative for Wikipedia to [...] undo the harm caused by these rogue but prolific editors who [...] wreaked havoc across the platform [. ...] a systemic problem [...] that needs immediate action.

Reddit[edit | edit source]

On February 20, 2025, an independent journalist announced his findings that over 110 subreddits were controlled by around 30 users who took advantage of the forum's loopholes to systematically distribute antisemitic disinformation for terrorist groups.^[370][371] The methods involved "vote brigading, subreddit moderation, and content manipulation".^[370]

Reportedly, the compromised subreddits include r/Documentaries (20M members), r/therewasanattempt (7.2M), r/PublicFreakout (4.7M), r/Fauxmoi (4.3M), r/MorbidReality (1.1M), r/ToiletPaperUSA (440K), r/Thatsactuallyverycool (277K), r/Palestine (270K), r/ENLIGHTENEDCENTRISM (184K) and r/boringdystopia (94K),^[370] from which misinformation was funnelled to smaller subreddits and beyond Reddit to influence public opinion,^[370] while alerts to the company were repeatedly ignored.^[370] In particular, the journalist noted:^[370]

The central locus of the network is a 270,000-member subreddit called /Palestine. A Discord server with the same name [...] identifying “comments sections that need more pro Palestinian commentary,” mass upvoting of anti-Israel posts, and downvoting of pro-Israel posts (a practice known as “vote brigading”). The Discord has separate task forces for Quora, TikTok, Instagram, X, and Wikipedia.

Instagram[edit | edit source]

Antisemitism is also common on Instagram.^[336][337] Some celebrities, including Israeli Jewish actresses Gal Gadot^[372][373] and Noa Cohen,^[374][375] are also victims, who have to restrict commenting on their Instagram profiles to reduce antisemitic harassment from purported pro-Palestinian groups.^[372][374]

Related pages[edit | edit source]

• Khazar myth
• Antiziganism
• Anti-Judaism and antisemitism
• Tragic Awakening

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Antisemitism.

Footnotes[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]