AntiSemitism And Islamophobia: A Two Sided Coin

On 15 March 2019, two consecutive terrorist mass shootings took place in Christchurch, New Zealand.  In total, 51 Muslims were killed and 89 others were injured. The killer was an Australian man then aged 28. The attacks were mainly motivated by beliefs in white nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white supremacist beliefs.

Another tragedy was the December 14, 2025 terrorist attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Two gunmen opened fire on a crowd celebrating a Hanukkah festival, killing 15 Jewish people and injuring 40 others. It was Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly three decades.

After the May 18, 2026 shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, police recovered writings, by the two teenage suspects, that expressed hatred not only toward Muslims but a broad range of minority groups. That follows a familiar pattern in which extremist attacks appear motivated by many ideologies. “What we know from the manifesto is it’s a little bit of everything,” says Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who studies extremism. “They’re elements of far-right, of Islamophobia, of antisemitism, of anti-LGBT, of racism and white supremacy.”

A few decades ago most people thought that the 6 million European Jews who were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust (the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and other groups during World War II) would be so disgusted that it would never happen again. A small reproduction of the Amsterdam annex where Anne Frank hid with her family opened to the public at the Center for Jewish History on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

But in January 2019 the European Commission published the results of a Euro-barometer face-to-face survey of 27,643 people in the 28 Member States of the EU, who were asked about their perception of Antisemitism. There are significant differences in perception among Member States. People saying that Antisemitism is a problem is highest in countries where physical attacks against the Jewish community have taken place, including Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, UK, and Belgium. Swedish (81%) and French (72%) respondents are the most likely to say that Antisemitism is a problem in their country.

Non-Jewish Europeans with Jewish friends and acquaintances are more likely to be aware of the increase in Antisemitism. To their credit, are those who themselves belong to other minorities.

Perhaps European minorities have learned the important lesson taught by the German Protestant theologian Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the cowardice of German intellectuals following the Nazis’ rise to power; and their subsequent purging of their chosen targets, one group after another group:

First they arrested Socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Socialist.
Then they arrested Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they arrested Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

In the USA a poll from a year before President Trump’s first election showed a majority of Americans (56 percent, including even larger majorities in all the major Christian denominations) said the values of Islam are at odds with American values. That’s a significant rise of nine points in just the four years since 2011, when Americans were evenly split, with 47 percent saying Islamic values were incompatible while 48 percent disagreed. Today sadly both Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are probably 5 or more points higher.

As in Europe three large groups of Americans had a major increase in Islamophobia; and three smaller minority groups only had a very small rise, or no raise at all.

Three groups of Americans having large numbers of people agreeing with the statement ‘the values of Islam are at odds with American values’ are the following religions: white evangelical Protestants (up 14 points to 73 percent from 59 percent in 2011); white mainline Protestants (up 16 points to 63 percent from 47 percent); and Catholics (up 20 points to 61 percent from 41 percent).

The three groups that did not show a significant rise in Islamophobia are all American minorities: only 55 percent of black Protestants said Islamic values were incompatible with American values (up only 4 points from 51 percent); and among Jews, and people who claim no religious identity, there was no rise at all, because statistically speaking a one point difference (to 42 percent from 41 percent) is within the surveys margin of error.

Mustafa Farooq, the executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, wrote (Edmonton Journal 5/9/19) “We also have to talk about the fact that the white-supremacist views of the gunman (who killed synagogue worshippers in Pittsburg and San Diego) involved both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The gunman’s hate against Muslims and Jews are not simply two discrete conceptions — rather, in reading his text, his hatred against the two communities is interwoven. That’s important to think about that.”

For it appears that white supremacy has returned out of the dead earth. Or had it ever gone away? White supremacists take to the streets in Edmonton on a weekly basis, chanting words of neo-Nazi white supremacy. Elsewhere, groups like the Soldiers of Odin (founded by neo-Nazis in Europe) and others have equally Islamophobic and anti-immigrant sentiments. At the other end of the country, in Quebec, Muslims, Jews and Sikhs are being targeted by the CAQ’s Bill 21. Bill 21 proposes the usage of the notwithstanding clause to bypass the constitutional rights of Canadians to prohibit Muslims and Jews from wearing religious symbols in the public sector.

The attack on one religious community is an attack on all communities. Islamophobia and anti-Semitism — and indeed all forms of hate — are two sides of the same coin: the dark coin of white supremacy. And the forces of white supremacy, as the 20th century so clearly shows us, are a threat to all people who love peace and democratic values.

I can’t help but think that if there is any lesson to draw from the horrors that have taken place over the last few months, it is that solidarity between Muslims and Jews, and solidarity among all people who abhor white supremacy, has never been more important than it is today.

The Holocaust was the last and worst of many attempts to destroy the Jewish People. Most long time oppressed or massacred minority victims give up and disappeared. Jews have survived because of their very strong religious commitment to hope in general and the Messianic Age in particular.

One well known example is the hope of a 15 year old Jewish girl during the Holocaust: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death.

“I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the day will come when I shall be able to carry them out.” Anne Frank”