By Alex Gordon in Haifa, Israel
The events of October 7, 2023, in Israel and their consequences for the Jewish diaspora dealt the Jewish people a severe and unexpected blow: the “Jewish question” has returned. It has resurfaced, gleaming with a bloody luster. Jews thought it had died, vanished into history, existing only in books and archives. They thought that an answer had already been found to this “cursed” question: the State of Israel or a peaceful and prosperous life in the Diaspora.
But what happened on October 7, 2023, in Israel—and subsequently in the Diaspora—showed that antisemitism is alive, well, and strong, and that the age-old “Jewish question” has once again confronted the Jewish people, despite the existence of Israel and Western civilization. This sense of history suddenly swept over Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora: beginning on October 7, those who until that day had considered themselves Israelis, Americans, Australians, British, French, and so on, clearly felt themselves to be Jews. Israelis divided the history of the Jewish people into two parts: before the Holocaust and after it—after which no pogrom could ever happen again. But they failed to consider a well-known warning from the history of the Jewish people: “In every generation, there are those who rise up against us to destroy us” (a quote from the Passover narrative). A similar incident occurred not on Passover, but on Simchat Torah (the festival of “the joy of the Torah,” during which the massacre took place).
On Wikipedia, you can find information about the essay “The End of History,” published in 1989 by the American philosopher Francis Fukuyama: “In this essay, he posited that the collapse of the Communist bloc was not merely another stage in the long history of humanity—a history marked by conflicts between worldviews, ideologies, and forms of government—but rather signaled the end of that history and the transition to an era in which liberal democracy would prevail in all countries of the world, without encountering resistance from other ideologies, and conflicts between states would be limited to a few isolated hotspots.”
Until October 7, 2023, the State of Israel was perceived as the “happy ending” to Jewish history. This conclusion was supported by Fukuyama’s worldview that liberal democracy triumphs in all parts of the world, reason prevails over extremism, and, as a result, the Jewish people face no danger even in the Diaspora. On October 7, 2023, in the Western world—where reason and moderation in the form of liberal democracy were supposed to prevail—a wave of aggressive protests against Jews erupted: the ideology of tolerance, acceptance of “the other,” and world peace has vanished, replaced by a primitive antisemitic ideology all too familiar in the history of the people of Israel.
Ancient Jewish history has emerged from the archives and moved from the pages of history books and scholarly research into reality. The return of Jewish history has found further confirmation in the emigration of Jews from Israel following the pogrom of October 7, 2023—a “return” to exile, where the tribulations of the Jewish people began. A wave of people has emerged among the Jews of Israel who are returning to the Diaspora as a solution to the problem of modern attacks by Israel’s enemies. The consciousness of the Diaspora has returned to Israelis as a “new” answer to the old “Jewish question.” As if in a time machine, Israelis are returning to the Diaspora from which their grandparents fled to Israel. The new is old, long forgotten. They think they are traveling into the future, but they are returning to the Diaspora in which the people of Israel have already been.
The anti-Jewish pogrom in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, seemed as though it would lead to global condemnation of antisemitism, but it led to the opposite phenomenon—the globalization of antisemitism. Following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the world faced an unprecedented global wave of antisemitism, which has become entrenched as the “new normal.” According to international and parliamentary reports (including monitoring by the J7 countries), the number of antisemitic incidents worldwide has increased several-fold on average since October 7.
In the United States and European countries (particularly France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), historic highs in verbal abuse, acts of vandalism, and physical violence against Jews have been recorded since records began. There has been an avalanche-like surge in hate speech and manifestations of both covert and overt antisemitism on social media (X, Meta, TikTok, YouTube). The war in the Gaza Strip has served as a trigger and a constant pretext for open displays of hatred, which are often disguised as radical criticism of the State of Israel’s policies.
A united front of aggression against Jews and Israelis has formed, bringing together radical left-wing movements, far-right groups, and Islamist radicals. Manifestations of antisemitism have spread beyond marginal communities to the streets of major cities, university campuses, and institutional discussions, creating an atmosphere of threat for Jewish communities around the world.
Under the guise of “legitimate criticism of Israel,” antisemitism often goes far beyond the bounds of moral norms. Schools and universities have become hotbeds of hatred. They go beyond the scope of government policy by holding Jews collectively responsible for their conflict with Palestinian Arabs and by making false accusations of genocide committed by Israelis in Gaza. They portray Hamas’s atrocities as a legitimate response by the “Palestinian people” to Israel’s “colonialism.”
The most morally upright army in the world, the Israel Defense Forces, is being condemned even by international organizations such as the UN. This revives the oldest and most dangerous stereotypes that have haunted Jews throughout their history. Comparisons of Israelis to Nazis have been legitimized at the highest state and government levels.
The pogrom of October 7, 2023, proved to be contagious. It led to the globalization of antisemitism. Antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans have moved from marginal groups into mainstream public discourse, reaching the streets of major cities, university campuses, and parliamentary debates. Antisemitism has mutated: previously, Jews were disliked for not having a state. In recent years, they have been hated for their state—and for refusing to cede it to anyone.
Antisemitism has taken on a global scale unprecedented in history, reaching its highest level since World War II.
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Alex Gordon is professor emeritus of physics at the University of Haifa and at Oranim, the Academic College of Education. He is the author of 12 books.