The Many Faces of 21st-Century Anti-Semitism

The ancient Greeks imagined shape-shifting monsters of myriad faces. Today’s anti-Semitism is chimeric or kaleidoscopic. Choose from these up-to-date manifestations of age-old Jew hatred: 

• Don ski masks and attack an aging rabbi in Buenos Aires in front of his terrified wife
• Shame a French schoolgirl by ripping off jewelry identifying her as Jewish as she walks home from school
• In the dead of night, use spray paint and black markers to deface New York public school playgrounds with anti-Semitic graffiti
• Toss bricks through the window of a synagogue — then throw firebomb
• Overturn tombstones in ancient Jewish cemeteries
• As a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom, spout conspiracy theories that the Mossad is already plotting to steal the next national election
• Parade missiles promising “Death to Israel” through the streets of Tehran
• Pass a fetid stream of United Nations Human Rights Council resolutions ignoring real culprits while condemning Israel for imaginary crimes against human rights
• If you are an American Democratic congresswoman who tweeted that evil Israel is “hypnotizing the world” — wait seven years to mumble an unconvincing apology
• As a Latino muralist in Los Angeles, which has the second-largest Jewish population in the world, proudly paint a giant mural on a high-profile commercial space depicting Israelis as the devil incarnate murdering children. Then, after the company owning the space defends you against charges of anti-Semitism, explain how you visited Israel and saw the genocidal face of Jews murdering Palestinians
• Write an op-ed in the prestigious New York Times implying that staunchly pro-Israel Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was instead the spiritual founder of the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions movement
• Preach to African Americans that Jews that their traditional civil rights allies instead are members of “the Synagogue of Satan”
• Turn Jewish summer camps into vehicles for anti-Israel indoctrination
• As a college professor in Michigan, renege on a promise to write a letter of recommendation for a Jewish student who wants to study in Israel
• Organize a whisper campaign to blackball students who visited Israel from running for campus office
• Harass Jewish-American college students who voice support for Israel or wear yarmulkes on campus
• Flood the internet with notorious anti-Semitic images dating from the Middle Ages that show hideous Jews as child murderers, shylocks and well poisoners
• Falsify history by denying the Holocaust or the Jewish people’s 3,000-year link to Jerusalem and the Holy Land
• Accuse Israel Defense Forces soldiers of murdering innocent Palestinians in order to sell their body parts on the international market
• Deny Israel the rights to self-determination and self-defense while brushing off criticism with the lie that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism”

Welcome to the 21st-century’s horrible house of mirrors in which every reflection distorts the truth about the Jewish people and Israel. Our ultimate vindication against tormentors and traducers will be in the Lord. Until then, we will keep our powder dry.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean and director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Harold Brackman is a historian and consultant to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.