Anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism on the rise worldwide: "Never again is today"

I am a descendant of Polish Jews who fled Europe between 1925-35 due to the alarming rise of anti-Semitism that was already felt at that time. Six brothers of my paternal grandfather, five of my paternal grandmothers, and the only sister of my maternal grandfather perished as victims of the Nazi machinery.

I have two daughters: one lives in Tel Aviv, and the other in Barcelona. Undoubtedly, the conflict between Israel and Hamas is, for me, a personal matter. The atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on Saturday, October 7, awakened in us the collective memory imprinted in our DNA. Never since the Holocaust had we witnessed such cruelty against human beings simply because they were Jews.

On the night of October 6, as I went to bed, a notification appeared on my phone: "Missile rain falls on Israel." The information was scarce, and nothing was yet known about the incursion into Israeli territory by thousands of bloodthirsty killers. I called my daughter, who by that time had been locked in a shelter for 45 minutes and would not leave for five days. She couldn't understand what was happening.

A missile landed in her neighborhood, near her apartment, right next to the street where her best friend lives, completely destroying the printing workshop where she had produced her graphic design graduation work a year earlier.

Despite the dangers, and after the initial shock, I confess that in these two months, I have been more concerned about the safety and emotional well-being of my other daughter, who is in Barcelona. In Israel, all houses have fortified safe rooms, public bomb shelters are everywhere, and my daughter has friends and family who support each other emotionally. Moreover, in times of war, Israeli society shows its best side – united, compassionate, setting aside political differences to defend each other, the homeland, and the nation.

In Spain, as in many other places, a wave of antisemitism unleashed, unlike anything seen since the 1930s. Masks fell off; those who had spent years justifying themselves ("I am anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic") revealed their dark side. My daughter's circle of friends turned their backs on her, as if she were guilty of what was happening in the Middle East. Her concern for her sister in Tel Aviv, her sorrow for the massacre, her open opposition to the heinous abuses against girls, young women, adults, and the elderly earned her the contempt of those she considered her friends.

Suddenly, going out on the street was not the same. It was necessary to check when and where there would be pro-Hamas demonstrations and avoid getting close. I had to suggest to my daughter, who was looking for a job, to remove any reference to leadership courses in Israel from her resume. Any sense of security shattered.

Costa Rica is an exceptional country. While hate messages have grown on social media, in line with other places, Costa Rican Jews have not felt insecure in public spaces. Pro-Hamas demonstrations have been few, non-violent, and sparsely attended, and any incidents of anti-Semitism in the streets have not gained much attention.

As a deputy of the Republic, I usually travel to different regions of the country, and so far, I have not received different treatment than before the barbarity of October 7. In the congress, I had to act to prevent the adoption of resolutions introduced by left-wing deputies to condemn Israel for exercising its right to legitimate defense or equating the terrorist acts of Hamas with the defensive actions of Israel, and in this, I have had the support of social democrats, Christian socialists, evangelicals, and, of course, liberals.

I cannot speak for Latin American Jews as a whole because living in Brazil is not the same as living in Mexico, in Chile as in Colombia, or in Bolivia as in Costa Rica. But regardless of what has happened in our immediate surroundings, the experience of Jews in the last two months has universal implications.

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) reported a 1180% increase in reported cases of anti-Semitism in the 7 DAYS FOLLOWING October 7, as the gruesome images of the barbarism committed by Hamas Islamist terrorists in Israel began to emerge, recorded by the murderers and rapists themselves.

That a significant part of the world's reaction to the most atrocious anti-Semitic acts since the end of the Nazi Holocaust was precisely to unleash the anti-Semitism that had been simmering under the surface, has been a slap in the face for all Jews.

Being blamed for the attacks against us, being denied the right to self-determination by questioning the right to exist of the only Jewish state, having to take extraordinary precautions when going out on the street or arriving at our homes, all less than 80 years after the end of World War II, is something we could not have imagined just three months ago.

But here we are today, at the end of the year 2023, horrified to see anti-Semites desecrating the Jewish cemetery in Vienna, painting Stars of David or the word "Jew" on Jewish houses in Berlin, shooting at schools, and throwing incendiary bombs at synagogues in Montreal, or painting swastikas in the synagogue in Temuco, Chile.

We have witnessed "pro-Palestinian" marches turning into anti-Semitic festivals in cities like London, Belfast, Paris, Copenhagen, Madrid, and Melbourne, where we have heard phrases like "death to the Jews," "Hitler was right," and of course, "from the river to the sea," revealing the genocidal intentions of those who claim it.

We have had to endure Colombian President Petro calling us Nazis. We observe with dismay the indifference of international organizations, created to promote human rights and peaceful coexistence among people, toward the suffering of Jews, leading us to conclude that human rights are for everyone except Jews, or perhaps, maintaining the Nazi tradition in the 21st century, we are still seen as subhumans undeserving of rights. The same goes for human rights NGOs, women's rights advocates, and child protection organizations. Their silence has been disgustingly deafening.

The Nazi Holocaust did not begin in 1939 or at the Wannsee Conference in 1942 when the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" was approved. I posit that it started in 1925 – perhaps earlier – when Hitler published “Mein Kampf” and opened the space for the discussion and eventual normalization of his extremist ideas.

The resurgence of anti-Semitism observed in the eight weeks since October 7 does not emerge in a vacuum. Since the infamous 1975 UN resolution declaring Zionism as racism, space was created to transform anti-Zionism discourse into anti-Semitism as a prelude to its normalization. The Hamas pogrom was the opportunity that closeted Western anti-Semites were waiting for to bring their visceral, repressed hatred for everything Jewish into the light.

If the world learned anything from World War II and the Nazi Holocaust, it must take exemplary measures against the current resurgence of anti-Semitism. For Jews, the main consequence of October 7 will be a change in attitude to face the new old dangers. Israel is fighting an existential battle. And it is fighting for all the Jews in the world because it is not just the existence of the state that is at stake; it is the existence of Jews everywhere that is being threatened. Whether anyone likes it or not, this time we will not go like sheep to the slaughter.