Antisemitism Is Not Just a Jewish Problem

Rejecting antisemitism is not a betrayal of Arab identity, but a crucial condition for lasting peace.

Why do Jewish people still face so much hatred in 2025? This is not only a question for historians or policymakers, but for anyone who cares about human dignity, coexistence, and the possibility of lasting peace.

Antisemitism is one of humanity’s oldest prejudices—persistent, adaptable, and violent. From the destruction of the Second Temple under the Roman Empire, to expulsions in medieval Europe, to the industrial-scale genocide of the Holocaust, Jewish communities have been blamed, persecuted, and murdered for centuries.

The question is why. Why has a community that represents just 0.2% of the world’s population been turned into history’s most enduring scapegoat? The answer is not a mystery. Across time and place, antisemitism has thrived through a familiar set of patterns: religious demonization, economic resentment, political scapegoating, and conspiracy theories that portray Jews as both powerful and subversive.

These patterns shift with each era, but the underlying logic remains the same: in moments of crisis, fear demands an explanation, and leaders have found it expedient to direct anger toward a small, vulnerable minority. Recognizing these dynamics is a matter of historical record and a necessary step in preventing the same mistakes from repeating in the present.

The Persistence of Difference

For centuries, Jewish communities have maintained a distinct identity through religious practice, language, and communal life. Dietary laws such as kashrut, the observance of the Sabbath, festivals like Passover, and the centrality of Hebrew and education created strong networks of continuity across generations. These practices functioned as mechanisms of survival in exile, keeping dispersed communities connected to one another and to their past.

Yet in societies that demanded uniformity, this persistence often came at a cost. In Babylon, Jewish refusal to abandon their faith led to both persecution and, eventually, the codification of core traditions that sustained them. Under Roman rule, resistance to assimilation fueled both repression and violent reprisals, culminating in the destruction of the Second Temple. In medieval Europe, Jewish separateness was reinforced by law—forced into ghettos, barred from many professions, and required to wear identifying clothing—yet the same distinctiveness was then recast as evidence of disloyalty or aloofness. Even in the modern era, from Tsarist Russia to Nazi Germany, Jewish attachment to tradition was seized upon as proof of otherness and a pretext for exclusion and violence.

What outsiders interpreted as stubbornness was, in reality, a determination to live in continuity with inherited laws and values. That insistence on integrity helped Jewish communities survive centuries of exile, persecution, and dispersion, though it also made them convenient targets for regimes that equated difference with disloyalty.

The Scapegoat in Times of Crisis

Throughout history, moments of crisis have often given rise to scapegoating. When societies face war, plague, or economic collapse, fear demands an outlet, and vulnerable minorities are frequently cast as the cause.

In medieval Europe, Jewish communities were accused of poisoning wells during the Black Death of the 14th century, leading to massacres from Strasbourg to Barcelona. In Spain, economic and political turmoil fueled the Inquisition, which persecuted Jews and conversos as supposed enemies within. Centuries later, in Tsarist Russia, pogroms erupted in times of famine and political instability, with Jewish neighborhoods destroyed while authorities looked the other way.

This pattern is not unique to Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, Armenians were targeted during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as nationalist pressures mounted. In modern times, economic hardship and social anxiety have fueled the rise of antisemitic conspiracy theories, from claims of Jewish “financial control” in the Great Depression to online movements today that recycle the same myths in times of uncertainty.

Scapegoating is not an accident of history, but a political strategy. By channeling fear and anger toward a minority, rulers and demagogues deflect blame from their own failures and corruption. The Jewish people, along with other marginalized groups, have too often been made to carry the weight of society’s anxieties. When fear overtakes reason, truth and justice are common casualties.

Success and Resentment

Excluded for centuries, Jews were barred from land ownership, guilds, and many trades across Europe and the Middle East. Prohibited from agriculture and most crafts, they were often pushed into niches such as finance, medicine, and law—professions that required literacy and mobility rather than land. By the Middle Ages, Jewish moneylenders played a visible role in economies where Christians were restricted by canon law from charging interest. Jewish physicians, meanwhile, became renowned in Islamic Spain and later in Christian Europe, where rulers often relied on their expertise even as widespread prejudice deepened.

Over time, the visibility of Jewish success in these limited but essential fields fueled resentment. Periods of economic crisis or political instability routinely gave rise to accusations that Jews were exploiters or conspirators. The Rothschild banking family in 19th-century Europe, for example, became a symbol in antisemitic propaganda of supposed “Jewish control” of finance. In Tsarist Russia, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion fabricated a global Jewish conspiracy, a lie that circulated widely and inspired persecution. In Nazi Germany, these myths became state policy, with devastating consequences.

The idea of “Jewish power” persists today in claims that Jews secretly control banks, the media, Hollywood, or governments. These accusations collapse under scrutiny. Jewish communities represent a fraction of global populations and wield no more monolithic influence than any other minority. Yet the narrative survives because it provides a convenient explanation for complex social problems. What has often been overlooked is that Jewish resilience, education, and mutual support networks—strategies for survival under centuries of exclusion—are what enabled communities to endure.

Palestine and the Misuse of Outrage

No serious discussion of modern antisemitism can ignore the question of Palestine. For decades, Palestinians have lived under occupation, displacement, and recurring cycles of war. Since the Nakba of 1948, when hundreds of thousands were expelled or fled from their homes, millions have remained stateless—confined to refugee camps, subjected to military rule, or trapped in blockaded Gaza. Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, restrictions on movement, home demolitions, and periodic military assaults have deepened the humanitarian crisis. Generations of Palestinians have grown up without the basic security, mobility, or political rights that others take for granted.

It is natural and necessary for people to feel moral outrage at this reality. Documented human rights abuses and violations of international law demand attention. But too often, anger at Israeli state policies drifts into hostility against Jews as a people. This is where legitimate solidarity collapses into prejudice. Opposing occupation is not antisemitic. Demanding justice for victims of violence is not hateful. Yet when protests slip into chants calling for the destruction of all Jews, or when Jewish individuals around the world are held responsible for the actions of a government they may not support, the moral high ground is compromised.

Jewish people are not a political monolith. Within Israel itself, and across the global Jewish diaspora, there is a spectrum of opinion on Palestinian rights and Israeli government policies. Some of the most vocal critics of settlement expansion and military actions are Jewish activists, academics, and human rights organizations. That diversity is what democracy requires: dissent, debate, and accountability.

The challenge, then, is to hold two truths at once: that Palestinians deserve justice, freedom, and dignity after decades of dispossession, and that Jews everywhere deserve to live free from hatred and collective blame. If more people were willing to say both clearly and consistently, the path toward coexistence would be less easily dismissed as naïve and more easily recognized as the only sustainable future.

Voices of Dialogue

Rabbi Elhanan Miller, a fluent Arabic-speaking rabbi, journalist, and educator in Jerusalem, advocates for a two-state solution founded on mutual recognition. He stresses that antisemitism is an ancient, irrational hatred, independent of what Jews or Israel’s government do. It would persist regardless of political developments.

Miller combats antisemitism through education. He founded People of the Book, an initiative that uses animation, humor, and cultural context to explain Jewish faith and history to Arab audiences in accessible ways. Since 2017, it has reached millions across the Arab world, easing tension and encouraging dialogue.

I also met Edwin Shuker, a British Jewish activist, philanthropist, and businessman of Iraqi origin. Forced to flee Iraq in the 1970s, he has devoted his life to preserving Jewish heritage in the Middle East and fostering interfaith understanding. He told Middle East Uncovered that “pure antisemitism is a European phenomenon imported to the Arab world in the twentieth century, and for the large part our community lived in peace and harmony for more than 2500 years,” and he hopes that “coexistence—true coexistence—can be restored.”

At a recent event, he said: “We need to demonstrate how much clearer our voice is when we leave our differences behind… We need to look beyond the next headline to more meaningful methods of combating antisemitism, such as education in schools.”

A Call for Moral Clarity

We must not allow antisemitism to disguise itself as “anti-Zionism.” When synagogues are defaced, Jewish students harassed, or kosher restaurants vandalized, that is not justice. It is hate. And it is wrong.

Fighting antisemitism requires rejecting tribalism. The world is not “us” and “them.” Jews are not a monolith, and neither are Arabs. We are individuals with unique stories, hopes, dreams, and fears.

True and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis would help reduce antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world. With peace comes trade, tourism, and human connection. People will encounter one another as fellow humans, breaking down prejudice. Government-led initiatives such as the Abrahamic Family House (an interfaith complex on Saadiyat Island, housing a mosque, a church, and a synagogue) in Abu Dhabi play a role, but grassroots efforts are just as essential. Above all, education remains the most potent weapon against hate.

We must amplify voices like Miller’s and Shuker’s, invest in initiatives that spread knowledge across languages and demographic lines, support cultural exchanges, and encourage grassroots peace-building efforts. Prejudice collapses when we embrace truth, empathy, and shared humanity. With patience and trust, we can ensure that hatred no longer writes the future.

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