Weight of the Crowd: A Candid Talk on Jew-Hatred
The time for mincing words has passed. We must call it what it is: Jew-hatred. The clinical term “Antisemitism” no longer captures the raw, ancient vitriol surging through our streets.
It is a sobering reality that in 2025, Jews live in a state of constant, justified hyper-vigilance. We saw why on the first night of Hanukkah at Bondi Beach in Sydney. As families gathered to light the first candle, a targeted massacre left 15 dead, many more injured, and a community shattered. What should have been a celebration of survival became a scene of slaughter.
This attack came on the heels of unprecedented antisemitic protests and acts of violence targeting Australian Jews—incidents that went unchecked and unchallenged. This is the inevitable result when we turn a blind eye and normalize rhetoric that singles out Jews and promotes violence against them. Is this the “new normal”? Indeed, in the last few years, we have witnessed nothing short of a tsunami of hateful speech and hate crimes targeting Jews both in the streets and online.
A History of “Catching Up”
Jew-hatred is the world’s oldest obsession. From the Seleucids in 160 BCE to the Roman slaughter of 500,000 in 70 CE; from the Spanish Expulsion of 1492 to the industrial genocide of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, where six million Jews were murdered in death camps.
Consider the math of survival: In 1939, there were 16.6 million Jews in the world. Today, 86 years after the Holocaust, the global Jewish population is still only 15.8 million. While there are 2.6 billion Christians and 2.1 billion Muslims, the Jewish people—a mere 0.2% of the world—are still playing “catch up” from a wound the world seems determined to reopen.
The Shifting Ground: From Pulpits to Populists
Perhaps most alarming is the crumbling of traditional alliances. Recent 2025 data shows a catastrophic shift among young Christians; support for the Jewish state among Evangelicals under 30 has plummeted by over 50% in the last few years. As a new generation “deconstructs” their faith, they are increasingly adopting a worldview where Jews are no longer cast as the people of the Bible, and “Replacement Theology”—the idea that the Church has replaced the Jewish people in God’s eyes—is returning to the mainstream.
This toxic rhetoric is dripped into the mainstream from both sides. On the right, populists like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens revive “medieval” tropes about Jewish control and “secret cabals.” On the left, we see a progressive movement that claims to invite “everyone under the tent”—except Jews. In the name of “intersectionality,” Jews have been uniquely excluded from the protections afforded to every other minority. They are the only group whose trauma is routinely invalidated, whose history of persecution is erased, and who are told they are “too privileged” to be victims. Inflammatory lies about Apartheid, Genocide, and Colonialism are weaponized to delegitimize the only Jewish state and cast its people as uniquely evil.
The Double Standard: The Mask of Anti-Zionism
Since October 7th, 2023—the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust—the world has shifted. On that day, Hamas terrorists from Gaza invaded Israel and brutally murdered over 1,200 civilians and kidnapped 251 more. In the aftermath, I have watched my sense of safety shatter as ancient prejudices adopted a modern mask: Anti-Zionism.
This narrative holds Jews to a double standard applied to no other people on earth. By swapping the word “Jew” for “Zionist,” radicals can use tropes of bloodlust and global control without social penalty. When the massacre of civilians is reframed as “resistance,” empathy has been replaced by ideology.
The Siege of the Individual
Nowhere is this “untruth” more visible than on our college campuses and in the mass protests within major Western cities. We have seen Jewish students physically blocked from entering their own classrooms. We have seen them told by administrators and local law enforcement to “hide their identity”—to remove their yarmulkes—so as not to “upset” the protesters while they chant “Globalize the Intifada.” Let us be clear: Intifada is a call for terrorism against Jews, including suicide bombings and indiscriminate violence.
This is the ultimate inversion of justice: asking the victim to disappear so the mob isn’t inconvenienced by their existence.
This brings us to the warning of the 19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “The crowd is untruth.” When we merge into a “crowd,” we cease to be individuals. The crowd has no conscience; it allows people to hide their personal morality behind a group identity. It is easy to “nod along” with a campus mob; it is comfortable to adopt the pre-packaged slogans of a social media trend. But Kierkegaard warns that this comfort is a trap. Truth is not found in a majority vote; it is lived and wrestled with by the individual.
Our Collective Responsibility
To live in a community like ours means acknowledging that we have a collective responsibility to one another. Silence in the face of Jew-hatred is not neutrality; it is a choice to let the foundation of our free society erode. When we “glaze over” a hateful comment at a dinner party or stay silent while a community leader uses coded language, we are feeding the “untruth” of the crowd.
We are reminded of the haunting words of Pastor Martin Niemöller:
“Then they came for the 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.”
A Call to Action: What You Can Do
This is a real-world wake-up call. I am asking you to find your individual voice and take four small, vital steps:
- Reach Out: Take a moment to reach out to your Jewish neighbors, friends, or colleagues. A simple message—”I see what is happening, and I want you to know I care”—can shatter the isolation that many feel right now.
- Speak to Your Children: Our kids are exposed to an unprecedented volume of Jew-hatred online and on campuses. Talk to them about it. Help them become critical thinkers, distinguish right from wrong, and reject all forms of antisemitism.
- Hold Leaders Accountable: Contact our elected officials and community leaders. Demand that they speak out against Jew-hatred clearly and without “both-sides” equivocation.
- Challenge the Narrative: Do not “glaze over” when you hear blatant lies or hateful racial slurs peddling old tropes. Question the slogans. Reject hate whether it comes wrapped in nationalism or progressivism.
I am asking you not to look away. To speak, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.
