No Holiday from Antisemitic Terror

By Judson Berger

Friday, December 19, 2025

 

It is only natural to feel a sense of despair after last weekend’s Hanukkah terror attack in Australia. Despair, because antisemitic attacks and antisemitism generally are fast becoming an emblem of the time.

 

Charles C. W. Cooke, in the new issue of the magazine, acknowledges that policy answers are painfully elusive in the face of the return of the world’s oldest hatred:

 

As a conservative, I am most definitely not of the view that there is some pat solution to all of our problems that, if implemented with vigor, will lead us into sunlit uplands. But, usually, I at least have a handful of thoughts. Here, I did not. I have no idea what to do about the dismal rise of global antisemitism, and I have no idea what to do about the scourge of mass killings, either. Put them together, as the perpetrators did in Australia, and I am bewildered beyond words.

 

We can reckon, at least, with the roots of the violence. The answer is not, simply: Israel. What would a ten-year-old girl whose parents arrived from Ukraine have to do with the Middle East? Noah Rothman, citing other incidents including a chaotic demonstration in Amsterdam outside a Hanukkah concert and a shoot-up at a Hanukkah-decorated California home as someone shouted “F*** the Jews,” writes,

 

The precipitating incident for these calculated acts of savagery wasn’t anything that took place in Israel or the Palestinian territories. The event that moved bloodthirsty assassins and mobs alike to terroristic violence was the first few nights of Hanukkah and the ostentatious displays of Judaic pride that accompany its celebration.

 

The international Jewish diaspora has come to expect its torment. That’s why expensive private security forces guard every synagogue, every Jewish day school. It’s why Jewish community centers spend exorbitant sums constructing airlock vestibules to evaluate potential threats before they gain access to teachers and children. It’s why Jewish events don’t reveal their location, even to attendees, until 24 hours out — just to give their would-be murderers less time to prepare.

 

None of that is new, although it is getting appreciably worse. And none of it has anything to do with the Jewish state’s geostrategic initiatives. These are the toxic fruits of a vile Jew hatred that had become observably more pronounced long before Hamas terrorists cascaded over Israel’s borders on October 7.

 

That hatred is nationless. It observes no borders. The FBI just announced a foiled plot to bomb sites throughout Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve, though the pro-Palestinian group involved appears to align with what Noah likened to “salad bar” terrorism: a mixture of beliefs, in this case anti-government and anti-capitalist, used to justify political violence. Back east, the NYPD is probing two possible antisemitic hate crimes, one involving Orthodox men who were confronted on a train to Crown Heights by suspects who allegedly yelled “F*** the Jews” and “I’ll kill you,” the other involving a man stabbed near Chabad World Headquarters. “Unfortunately, this Hanukkah became a hunting ground against Jews, all around the world,” Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon said, per CBS.

 

While there is no catch-all policy answer to this dismal rise, one place for governments to start would be to recognize the problem by name — antisemitic violence — and take sensible security steps to combat it. From National Review’s editorial on the Bondi Beach attack:

 

We wish we could say this horrific event was shocking, but unfortunately, it is not. Australian authorities had been put on notice about the dangerous rise of antisemitism in recent years and have not taken the threat seriously. Just this month, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry warned about the rising tide of antisemitism, with annual incidents now five times what they were prior to the October 7 massacres. These have included arson attacks on synagogues, preschools, and other Jewish institutions. Jewish homes and cars have been vandalized with antisemitic messages.

 

The response by the Australian government has been to accommodate the anti-Israel mob while failing to protect Jewish communities. . . . The Hanukkah event where the massacre occurred was an annual tradition run by the Jewish organization Chabad that brings together Sydney’s Jewish community. Given the rise of antisemitism in Australia, one would think there would be a large police presence on hand, prepared to respond immediately to any threat. Instead, witnesses reported that police “froze.”