The State of Global Antisemitism: Keynote Address at Tel Aviv University

June 26, 2024 (watch video)

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. 

I’d like to thank Tel Aviv University, the staff of the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center, and all the organizers and partners for making this critically important evening possible. 

This is my first speech at a tech conference and my initial impression is that I’m extraordinarily overdressed. I saw on my way here from Jerusalem that Naftali Bennett addressed this conference yesterday in a T-shirt and jeans. I wish I’d gotten the memo. 

I’d also like to say a word about the rare privilege of being one of only two male speakers at an otherwise all-female event. As someone who has for years – and as recently as yesterday – refused to participate in all-male panels and has too often been told that “no qualified women could be found,” I would just encourage conference organizers and event hosts to take a look at this hall today. Kol hakavod. 

In Los Angeles, a mob waving Palestinian flags laid siege to a synagogue and beat Jewish worshipers in the street, days after a different mob screamed “Go back to Germany” at Jewish children outside a synagogue preschool. 

At Stanford, a university task force found that antisemitism on campus is “widespread and pernicious,” with Jewish and Israeli students feeling “ostracized, canceled, and intimidated.” 

In Brooklyn, a Jewish family was assaulted at their twin sons’ fifth grade graduation by another family shouting “Free Palestine” and “Death to Israel.” 

At Columbia, three deans were placed on leave after they were revealed to have mocked Jewish students and Hillel staff during a panel on antisemitism on campus. 

In Westchester, a progressive congressman who lost his primary race to a moderate challenger invoked antisemitic tropes in his concession speech, insinuating that a dark Jewish conspiracy had brought about his defeat. 

In Paris, French President Emmunael Macron decried the “scourge of antisemitism” after a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped and threatened with murder by three underage boys, including an ex-boyfriend enraged that she had concealed her Jewishness from him. 

In Amsterdam, the words “No Zionists Allowed” were spray-painted on the sidewalk outside a home that had belonged to a Jewish family deported during the Holocaust. 

In southern Russia, assailants opened fire at synagogues in two separate cities simultaneously and then burned one of them to the ground. 

And all of this – all of this – happened in the past week alone. 

The surge in antisemitism around the world in the eight months since October 7 has been nothing short of breathtaking. 

That the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust should have precipitated not an unparalleled outpouring of sympathy and support but rather an unprecedented wave of Jew-hatred has left us all reeling. 

In fact, it’s come so fast and so furious that it’s often been difficult to know where to look. Each day, it seems, another synagogue is defaced, another Israeli restaurant vandalized, another Jewish student made to feel unwelcome, another Jewish voter rendered politically homeless. 

And nowhere is antisemitism more prevalent than it is online. 

To be openly Jewish on social media platforms today is to expose oneself to unrelenting hate and abuse. Hashtags like #HitlerWasRight and #DeathToJews have proliferated, horrific antisemitic imagery is seemingly everywhere, and even the most innocuous posts by Jewish users are often followed by cascades of blood libels, conspiracy theories, and death threats. 

It may be tempting to dismiss online antisemitism as unpleasant but ultimately harmless, hate restricted to the virtual realm. 

But we know that isn’t true. Hate groups use social media platforms to organize, recruit, fundraise, and incite, to poison the discourse, spread disinformation, and put Jews on the defensive. 

And online hate has direct, real-world consequences. 

As one study found just last year, increases in antisemitic speech – and particularly anti-Zionist speech – online can actually help predict real-world antisemitic activity, including both far-right threats and violence and far-left antisemitic incidents, both on and off college campuses. 

And time and again, the perpetrators of antisemitic violence – from the Tree of Life synagogue shooter to the organizers of pro-Hamas mobs to the terrorists themselves – have been found to have engaged in virulent antisemitic activity online. 

Hate that starts online rarely stays there. 

The maelstrom of the past eight months has left many Jews feeling intimidated and alone. It has often felt as though the entire world is against us, the hate coming from so many directions at once – including from those we had thought were our friends and our allies. It would be all too easy to lose hope. 

And yet, out of the chaos has emerged a moment of crystal clarity. 

To borrow Douglas Murrary’s striking imagery, it’s as though a flare has gone up, briefly illuminating all and showing us exactly where everyone stands. 

Lines that were previously blurred have become sharp and bold. Lines between good and evil, between right and wrong, between those who are with us and those who wish we would just disappear. 

Yes, you can criticize the Israeli government – this or any other – without being antisemitic. In fact, tens of thousands of Israelis do it every single weekend. 

But no, using Israel as a pretext for your hate does not excuse it. You aren’t being as clever as you think you are by substituting “Zionist” for “Jew.” We see right through you. 

Because yes – yes – anti-Zionism is antisemitism. 

If that wasn’t clear before October 7, it sure as heck is now. 

On a theoretical level, it’s simply discriminatory to seek to deny the Jewish people a right afforded all other nations – the right of self-determination. That, in itself, is antisemitic. 

But on a practical level, anti-Zionism is even more sinister. The desire to deny Jews the capacity of self-defense, leaving them at the mercy of their neighbors, was cruel and bigoted before the atrocities of that terrible day. Today it is simply evil.

And the public discourse, including online, is full of it. 

If there is any comfort to be had, it may be in that people of conscience share our concern.

Public opinion polls show that the general public – at least in the United States – is concerned about rising antisemitism and perceives it across the political spectrum. Three quarters believe that Jew-hated is a problem in America and over half believe it is on the rise. And more than 80 percent – eight out of every ten Americans – say that the belief that Israel has no right to exist, the fundamental belief of anti-Zionism, is indeed antisemitic.

But although well-meaning people may abhor antisemitism and may believe it ought to be fought, they are often drowned out by the tidal wave of hate. And while many of those espousing antisemitic views online are bots, fictitious beings created with the express purpose of spreading bigotry, all too many are real. And we Jews are simply outnumbered.

But what we lack in numbers we make up for in wit – what used to be called the yiddishe kop.

And that’s where technology comes in.

As a technological superpower, Israel is well-positioned to tackle the challenge of combating online antisemitism head-on. Israelis power some of the world’s leading tech companies and Israeli innovations are everywhere you look. To paraphrase the Book of Esther, what have we developed these capabilities for, if not for this?

This evening we’ll hear from several experts harnessing the power of technology to combat antisemitism both online and off. We’ll learn about efforts to combat online Holocaust denial via AI, to cut off hate groups’ funding sources, to mitigate the role played by malicious state actors, and to ensure social media companies are enforcing their own hate speech policies.

I’ve heard about all of it and have fully understood little of it. But I have been inspired and encouraged by the innovative thinking evident in these remarkable initiatives and I know you all will be too.

This is a battle that we can only win together. It will take a concerted effort by governments, corporations, nonprofits, communities, and individuals to push back against the purveyors of hate. We all have a role to play.

And we should be honest: we may never eradicate antisemitism altogether. Hatred of Jews has existed for as long as the Jews have and it may well endure into the future.

But if our efforts enable one Jewish child to go to school unafraid, one Jewish college student to raise his head high on campus, one Jewish family to attend synagogue without police protection, one Jewish social media user to experience a platform without abuse – we will have made a difference.

לא עליך המלאכה לגמור, ולא אתה בן חורין לבטל ממנה.

It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.

Let’s set out and do this work, together.

Thank you very much.

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