The news from Bondi Beach, Sydney, on December 14, 2025, sent a shockwave across the world: an act of cold-blooded terror at a Hanukkah celebration, claiming the lives of at least 15 innocent people, including an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor.
This targeted, antisemitic shooting is a brutal reminder that hatred against Jews—the world’s oldest prejudice—is not a relic of the past, but a dangerous, current, and global crisis.
Understanding and confronting antisemitism today requires looking beyond history books and acknowledging the reality of rising violence, political controversy, and pervasive online hate.
What Is Antisemitism? Defining the Oldest Hatred
Antisemitism is prejudice, hatred of, or discrimination against Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Crucially, it’s a specific form of bigotry that targets Jewish people for who they are.
While often rooted in religious and historical myths, it manifests today in many modern forms:
- Hate Speech and Threats: Physical or online abuse, slurs, and malicious conspiracy theories.
- Vandalism: Desecration of synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and memorials.
- Physical Attacks: Assaults on visibly Jewish individuals and organized terrorist attacks like the Bondi Beach shooting.
- New Manifestations: Attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel by using antisemitic tropes (e.g., “Jewish control” or “global cabal”) or holding all Jews responsible for its policies, a phenomenon often described as the “new antisemitism.”
Historical Roots: The Foundation of Fear
The roots of antisemitism stretch back over two millennia, creating a terrifying legacy that still shapes prejudice today.
- Religious and Theological Conflict: Early forms of hate emerged from theological conflicts in ancient times, later solidified in medieval Europe by religious myths that falsely painted Jews as “Christ-killers,” poisoning wells, or practicing dark rituals. These falsehoods justified centuries of forced conversions, expulsions, and pogroms (organized massacres).
- Racialization: In the 19th and 20th centuries, this prejudice morphed into a racialized doctrine. The Nazis weaponized this to systematically murder six million Jews during the Holocaust (Shoah), attempting to eradicate the entire Jewish people.
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Common Myths and Stereotypes
The endurance of antisemitism is fueled by a core set of persistent, irrational stereotypes:
- The Conspiracy Myth: The idea that Jews secretly control global finance, media, or politics—a dangerous trope that fuels movements from the extreme left to the extreme right.
- The Greedy/Frugal Jew: Conflicting stereotypes of Jews as either obsessively greedy capitalists or as revolutionary communists, used to justify economic attacks and discrimination.
- Dual Loyalty: The accusation that Jewish people are inherently disloyal to their home country because their true allegiance lies elsewhere, often linked today to the existence of Israel.
These myths are fundamentally illogical, but they provide a simple, easily digestible scapegoat during times of economic or social crisis.
Modern Political, Social & Media Influence
In 2025, the flames of antisemitism are fanned by current events and the architecture of the modern internet.
- The October 7 Fallout: Since the Hamas-Israel war began in October 2023, antisemitic incidents—including violence, vandalism, and threats—have surged dramatically in countries around the globe, as documented by reports from euronews. This geopolitical conflict is often wrongly leveraged to target Jews worldwide, holding them collectively accountable for actions of the Israeli government.
- Online Hate Speech: Social media platforms act as accelerants, allowing hate to spread instantaneously and globally. Conspiracy theories thrive in echo chambers, radicalizing individuals in ways that lead to real-world violence, as investigators suggest may have inspired the attackers in Sydney.
- The Politicization of Campus Climate: In the U.S., the debate over campus antisemitism has become highly politicized, leading to controversy. Reports, such as those concerning the University of California, suggest political pressure in the handling of allegations, showing how legal and political structures themselves struggle to define and enforce protections against this specific hatred.
Recent Global Incidents (2025): A Year of Concern
The events of 2025 demonstrate that antisemitism remains a clear and present danger:
- The Bondi Beach Shooting: This devastating terrorist attack during a sacred Jewish holiday showed the deadly physical threat facing Jewish communities, even in countries like Australia previously considered safe. Its link to extremist ideology highlights the globalized nature of the threat.
- Rising Global Incidents: Beyond violence, reports show a massive surge in all forms of antisemitic incidents across Europe and North America, driving leaders to warn that tens of thousands of Jews are considering leaving Europe due to safety fears.
- Resilience in the Face of Hate: Even amidst rising threats, the response of Jewish communities is often one of strength and resistance. In Boulder, Colorado, community members deliberately held a public Hanukkah celebration at the site of a previous anti-Jewish firebombing, turning a location of hate into a symbol of unity and defiance, as reported by The Washington Post.
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Fighting Antisemitism: Education, Legislation, and Empathy
Antisemitism persists because it is both a historical infection and a constantly adapting psychological phenomenon, playing on deep-seated societal fears and the need for a scapegoat. The danger is not just to Jewish people, but to the entire social fabric: societies where hate goes unchecked are societies that are failing.
The fight requires a concerted, global effort:
- Education: Teaching the truth about Jewish history and the Holocaust, debunking stereotypes, and making space for open, respectful dialogue about modern Israel-related tensions.
- Legal Protections: Strengthening national and international laws to treat antisemitic hate crimes with the seriousness they deserve. International bodies, including 52 countries at the U.N., have recently affirmed their commitment to strengthen protections and condemn antisemitism.
- Interfaith Dialogue: Building bridges of understanding between Jewish communities and other religious and ethnic groups to combat isolation and prejudice.
- Vigilance Against Conspiracy: Actively challenging online hate, recognizing that the conspiracy theory targeting Jews is often the gateway drug to broader extremist ideologies.
Conclusion
From the gas chambers of the last century to the beachside streets of Sydney in 2025, the thread of antisemitism runs through human history, an irrational yet devastating form of hatred.
The Bondi Beach victims—the elderly survivor, the celebration attendees—are a tragic reminder that this is not an academic discussion. It is a matter of life and death, dignity and security.
We must reject the darkness of prejudice and instead choose empathy, learning, and unwavering vigilance. By standing together against this specific hate, we do not just protect one community; we uphold the principles of liberty and decency for everyone.