The 2023 Antisemitism Report released Wednesday by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora and the Fight against Antisemitism, in cooperation with the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency warns that hatred of Jews has skyrocketed worldwide in the wake of the October 7 invasion of Israel and massacres by Hamas terrorists.
The report reviews global antisemitism trends, with a special focus on the period after the October 7 and on campus antisemitism, the ministry said.
The year 2023 ended with a 235 percent increase in antisemitic incidents worldwide, as compared to the previous year. Forty-five percent of all antisemitic incidents monitored in 2023 took place in the United States; 39 percent occurred in Europe.
Of equal concern was the 33 percent increase in violent antisemitic events as compared to those in 2022. Six Jews were murdered in the United States, Egypt and Tunisia.
According to the report, last year began with an approximate 10 percent increase in recorded incidents of antisemitism as compared to 2022. This trend was maintained throughout the first nine months of the year (January-September).
The change came in the final quarter of 2023, when there were six times more antisemitic events as compared to the prior three quarters.
Forty-eight percent of antisemitic incidents during that period — including 46 percent that occurred in the United States — were carried out against the background of Israel’s Swords of Iron War.
The war was begun by Gaza’s Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists, who together with its terrorist allies and followers, slaughtered some 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians. More than 250 others were kidnapped and dragged into Gaza captivity.
These basic facts were largely disputed, denied and in some cases even justified by those who perpetrated antisemitic incidents or wrote antisemitic content online.
Social platforms continue to allow the dissemination of antisemitic content that strongly influences and shapes public opinion and global consciousness, as seen in the absolutely frightening 1,200 percent increase in antisemitic social media posts calling for violence against Jews, Israelis and Zionists.
At least 74 percent of the online antisemitic material is comprised of the “anti-Israel” antisemitism. This new incarnation of the world’s oldest hatred focuses itself primarily on the Israel-Palestinian Authority conflict, emanating mostly from Palestinian Authority, pro-PA and progressive groups.
According to the report there was also a significant increase in Holocaust denial and distortion, with most (68 percent) of the content published between November and December 2023 appearing on the X social media platform, and the rest showing up on TikTok as well as Facebook, Instagram (both owned by Meta) and Telegram.
In the two months following October 7, there was a 337 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in the United States compared with the same period in 2022 — the highest number of antisemitic incidents recorded in a two-month period since 1979, when documentation of such incidents began.
There were approximately 200 demonstrations that featured expressions of antisemitism and/or anti-Zionism, and/or support for terrorism during November-December 2023, according to the report.
Also during that same two-month period, there was a 919 percent increase in antisemitic posts online, and a 540 percent increase in the number of “swatting” incidents — false bomb threats directed at Jewish institutions and synagogues.
On university campuses in the country, there was a 700 percent rise in the number of antisemitic events on university campuses. Along with this, 54.5 percent of Jewish students in the US say they do not feel physically safe on campuses; more than a third of Jewish students in the US feel compelled to hide their Jewish identity.
