Page 9 - TORCH Magazine #29 - Autumn 2025

A
ntisemitism in Britain, Europe
and much of the world has
surged to levels unseen since
the darkest days of the last
century. This summer, Jewish people were
attacked on beaches, murdered outside
synagogues, threatened in hotels, and
even targeted in their homes, simply for
being Jewish.
Some antisemites try to justify this
hatred as a reaction to Israel’s actions.
We’ve heard people saying that Jews
“deserve” to be treated badly because of
Israel’s actions. Not only is Israel not guilty
of the false accusations against it, but Jews
should not be targeted anywhere for any
reason. No right-minded person would
claim that Muslims should be targeted in
the UK because of the actions of terrorist
regimes in the Middle East. Yet, we have
heard this against Jews and Israel time and
time again.
Each time Israel is attacked, or Israel
defends itself, the world’s oldest hatred
rears its ugly head. What we are witnessing
is a spiritual reaction: a rising tide of
hostility that targets Jews everywhere
through the guise of Israel-hatred.
Furthermore, antisemitism increases
most, not when Israel has success against
Hamas, but instead when Hamas is
perceived to have success against Israel.
After Hamas’s barbaric massacre on 7
October 2023, when more than 1,200
Israelis were murdered and hundreds taken
hostage, this attack was the inspiration
that galvanised antisemites to attack Jews
worldwide. There was a spike in antisemitic
hate crimes directly after October 7th, even
before an Israeli soldier had entered Gaza.
We will explain in this article, there have
been other triggers for antisemitism.
and Adrian Daulby, 53, were killed in the
attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the
Jewish calendar. The Islamist attacker, Jihad
Al-Shamie, carried out the car ramming
and stabbing attack on the Heaton Park
synagogue which injured several others and
prompted the UK government to increase
security at all synagogues and Jewish
schools throughout the UK. We are yet to
see the antisemitism statistics following
this attack, but it too likely triggered more
antisemitism.
We also want to draw your attention
to several incidents that were not widely
publicised in the mainstream media. These
attacks are shocking, but they are just a
handful of the several thousand incidents
that have taken place in the UK and Europe
this year.
In Bournemouth, over the August Bank
Holiday weekend, a Jewish teenage boy was
shot in the head with an air rifle outside
a synagogue. He was targeted simply for
wearing his kippah. That same week, a
swastika was daubed on the home of a
Bournemouth rabbi, Benzion Alperowitz,
who encouraged his community saying
that “Hashem runs the world and is always
watching over us.” In London, a man went
on an antisemitic crime spree over several
weeks starting in July. He smeared faeces
on several synagogues and Jewish children’s
nurseries in North London. He was
eventually arrested by police in September.
Across the Channel, Jews faced similar
attacks. In France, Jewish cars were
vandalised with “Free Palestine” graffiti.
In Vienna, a taxi driver assaulted Jewish
passengers while shouting “murderers.”
In the Netherlands, Israeli tourists were
secretly filmed and their video posted
online with a call for them to be targeted
and attacked in the hotel they were
Hate on the beaches, in the streets, and at festivals
staying in. In Sicily, a hotel worker told
an Israeli woman to cancel her booking
if she “supported her government.” In
The most widely publicised antisemitic
attack in the UK was of course the
Manchester synagogue attack, which made
global headlines and was a wake-up call to
the very real threat against Jews.
Two British Jews, Melvin Cravitz, 66,
Frankfurt, masked agitators hurled red
paint over posters of Israeli hostages and
shouted antisemitic slurs. In Athens, an
Israeli tourist had his ear bitten off by an
attacker shouting “I am Hamas.” In Rhodes,
Jewish teenagers were chased by a mob
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