Over the three years since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, life has changed for diaspora Jews. 

As during the past eight decades, the most lethal violence has been borne by the half of global Jewry calling Israel home—those subjected to missile and other assaults, incessant scrambling to bomb shelters and long stretches of repeated military duty by loved ones. 

But Jews outside the Jewish state, invariably small minorities, have felt distinctly vulnerable. They are increasingly outnumbered by communities in which “anti-Zionist” hostility is the norm, they lack the protection of an army, and they often particularly feel the weight of a long history of persecution, despite unceasing efforts to find lasting acceptance. 

Antisemitism of various strands had never disappeared from the world scene, and sentiment against Israel has widened ever since Israelis shed their underdog status by outliving the existential wars of 1967 and 1973. Just two years after the Yom Kippur War, anti-U.S. and anti-Israel forces found common cause in exploiting the U.N. to tar Jewish self-determination alone as “racism.” In the half-century since, just as traditional antisemitism could galvanize bigotry from the right and left alike, extremists of all types have coalesced around the Israeli bogeyman—targeting all “Zionists” instead of Jews, and singling them out not because of their insidiousness but their easy isolation. 

Gradually, the demonization, delegitimization and double standards against Israel became more mainstream, seeping beyond radical politics and U.N. forums into universities, human rights organizations, media outlets, labor unions and religious denominations.

But now is different. Antisemitism in its anti-Zionist guise has become not just more normalized but commonplace.

And it’s encountered not only in much of the Arab and Muslim world—and in European cities like Brussels, Paris and Malmö, to which Middle Eastern prejudices were imported—but the United States. Long a comparably philosemitic society, with broad bipartisan support for the vital U.S.-Israel bond, America now faces spiking antisemitism, especially among young people ignorant of its falsehoods and danger. 

American Jews are facing hate everywhere: in politics, in schools, on social media, on dating apps and in professions ranging from medicine to publishing. And even in New York—the largest Jewish population center outside of Israel—anti-Israeli demagoguery can be inescapable, invading the everyday lives of ordinary Jewish citizens thousands of miles away from the Middle East.

For Jews in the West—at least those outside Europe, who haven’t been directly besieged since the second intifada—there have been many moments of shock following Hamas’ 2023 atrocities and its calculated use of Gazans as human shields. 

There was, of course, the ripping down of posters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The chilling taunts, harassment and threats, at all too many “demonstrations” and by all too many hooligans. The glorification of terrorist “martyrs” and erasure of Israeli victims. The blaming on Israel (or Zionists, or Jews) of any ill, of any type. The shameless piling on by Greta Thunberg and Ms Rachel and Macklemore and Irish athletes. The one-sided efforts at shaming, or at appeasement, by government leaders in Spain, France and the U.K. The mobbing, in spaces celebrating “inclusivity,” even of Jewish figures renouncing the Israeli government. The murders, or near-murders, of yet more Jews in Manchester, Bondi Beach, Washington, Boulder, Amsterdam and elsewhere. 

The election of politicians—even in New York—outrageously accusing Israel (always Israel) of “genocide,” while a supposedly progressive aspirant to public office called for imprisoning Zionists in a “castration” center. Among supposed conservatives, meanwhile, increasingly unhinged pundit Tucker Carlson has provided a friendly platform to a Nazi sympathizing troll, and Candace Owens has promoted a slew of antisemitic crackpot theories, specifically targeting B’nai B’rith.

Recently joining a B’nai B’rith Connect group to watch the Broadway play “Giant”—in which John Lithgow portrayed late children’s author Roald Dahl and his visceral antisemitism dressed as humanitarianism—some of us could not help but feel we were real-life subjects of the performance even while sitting in the audience.

With their simplistic slogans, catchy chants, memorable symbols and coopted causes, the “Free Palestine” movement has provided a masterclass in effective modern marketing and aggressive organizing. But this has been no mere exercise in advocacy—it’s been about “globalizing the intifada.” 

Since 2023, citizens need not be in Israel, be Israeli or have any particular view on Israeli government policies to be sucked into a propaganda war aimed at Jews’ basic rights and identity and the Jewish state’s very legitimacy. 

It’s not just the inexplicable ubiquity of Palestinian keffiyehs at unrelated rallies (or, as in France, riots). Or of viral Palestinian flag-colored watermelon emojis as virtue signals online. 

In the boroughs of New York City, every lamppost has been a potential battleground and canvas for maligning Israel in a way that no other country or party to conflict is. 

By extension, whether just going to pray or heading out to buy milk at the grocery, anyone caring about Israel (or assumed to) can find themselves stigmatized and feeling threatened, suddenly and repeatedly.

The photos below are just a sample of everyday sights happened upon by one person, in one city—the heart of the Jewish diaspora—since an October day in 2023. Hamas sought to prevent peace in Israel, but it also diminished it far from there.

---

David J. Michaels is Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs at B’nai B’rith International.