Research found 35% of Jews felt unsafe in Britain and 32% reported at least one antisemitic incident in 2024
Feelings of safety in the UK’s Jewish community have declined sharply in the last couple of years, according to the largest survey of British Jews since 7 October 2023.
The research, conducted in June and July, found 35% of Jews felt unsafe in Britain in 2025, compared with 9% in 2023 before the Hamas attacks.
Continue reading...Serbian nationals also accused by Serbian police of defacing Jewish sites, as French officials investigate foreign interference
Serbian police have arrested 11 people, accusing them of “inciting hatred” in France and Germany, and linking them to acts that include placing pigs’ heads near mosques and defacing Jewish sites.
The arrests came days after French prosecutors said foreign interference was probably to blame for a spate of provocative acts that had targeted Jewish and Muslim sites in France in recent years, as tensions run high over the war in Gaza. French officials have previously said they were investigating Russia’s role in destabilising operations that have stoked social tensions and sown division in France.
Continue reading...Belgian organisers are accused of ‘naked antisemitism’ after cancelling performance by Lahav Shani
A Belgian classical music festival has axed a leading German orchestra from its programme over concerns about its Israeli conductor, drawing accusations of antisemitism from Berlin.
Flanders Festival Ghent announced it had cancelled a concert by the Munich Philharmonic scheduled for 18 September, citing insufficient clarity over Lahav Shani’s attitude to the Israeli government.
Continue reading...Officers step up patrols for Bournemouth’s Jewish community after teenage boy shot with air rifle
Dorset police have launched an investigation and stepped up patrols for Bournemouth’s Jewish community after a wave of antisemitic hate crimes in the seaside town.
Over the weekend, a teenage boy was shot with an air rifle and injured, and swastika graffiti appeared on buildings, police said.
Continue reading...Comments come after US ambassador accused government of failing to do enough to stem hate crimes against Jews
Cabinet ministers and Jewish groups have said France has “no lessons to take” from the US on tackling antisemitism, as Washington’s ambassador to Paris was summoned after accusing the government of failing to do enough to stem hate crimes against Jews.
Charles Kushner, who is Jewish, was ordered to report to the foreign ministry on Monday after he wrote a letter to Emmanuel Macron criticising a “lack of sufficient action” by the government to confront the “dramatic rise” in antisemitism in France.
Continue reading...Kushner says in letter to Macron he’s concerned over ‘rise of antisemitism’ and ‘lack of sufficient action’ to confront it
France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to President Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.
Kushner, who is Jewish and whose son is married to US President Donald Trump’s daughter, published the open letter in the Wall Street Journal amid deep divides between France and the US and Israel.
Continue reading...Manager of zipline facility detained for alleged religious discrimination after group of eight- to 18-year-olds turned away
The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children were refused access.
The children, aged eight to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the Tyrovol zipline adventure park in Porté-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenees mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor’s office said.
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister ignores pleas to resolve dispute with Australia through ‘diplomacy rather than public posturing’
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Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Australian Jewish groups to calm his feud with Anthony Albanese, further criticising the prime minister and escalating an ugly spat between the two leaders.
Australia’s peak Jewish group, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), on Wednesday labelled Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s attack on Albanese as “inflammatory and provocative”, and a “clumsy intervention” which had affected Australia’s Jewish community.
Continue reading...French president responds to Israeli PM’s ‘erroneous’ allegations in relation to decision to recognise state of Palestine
Emmanuel Macron has hit out at Benjamin Netanyahu for his “abject” and “erroneous” remarks after Israel’s prime minister claimed that antisemitism had “surged” in France after the country’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state in September.
In a statement released late on Tuesday, the office of the French president pushed back against Netanyahu’s claim. “The analysis suggesting that France’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine in September is behind the rise in antisemitic violence in France is erroneous, abject, and will not go unanswered,” it said. “The current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalisation and manipulation.”
Continue reading...French president vows to punish those who felled tree planted in memory of Jewish man tortured to death in 2006
The felling of an olive tree planted in memory of a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 caused outrage in France on Friday, with Emmanuel Macron promising to punish an act of “antisemitic hatred”.
Politicians across the political spectrum condemned the felling as an attack against the memory of Ilan Halimi, who was kidnapped by a gang of about 20 young people in January 2006 and tortured on a low-income housing estate in the southern Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Continue reading...In an open letter, writers denounced abrupt scrapping of a Harvard Educational Review issue dedicated to Palestine
More than 115 education scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”.
In an open letter published on Thursday, the scholars denounced the abrupt scrapping of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies.”
Continue reading...Group’s lawyers say demonstration ‘cannot be stopped’ as Christian-led group protesting antisemitism plans rally for same day
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Pro-Palestine protesters will have to wait until Saturday to find out if they can legally march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge this weekend, but organisers are vowing to go ahead regardless of the court decision.
However, the court heard the protest organisers are willing to postpone the march if police agree to work with them.
Continue reading...Lawsuit alleges protesters made antisemitic threats with the ‘knowledge and acquiescence’ of university officials
The University of California, Los Angeles, will pay nearly $6.5m to settle a lawsuit by Jewish students and a professor who said the university allowed antisemitic discrimination to take place on campus during last year’s pro-Palestinian protests.
The lawsuit alleged that with the “knowledge and acquiescence” of university officials, protesters prevented Jewish students from accessing parts of campus, and made antisemitic threats. Under the settlement agreement announced on Tuesday, the university admitted it had “fallen short” and agreed to pay $2.33m to eight groups that support UCLA’s Jewish community, $320,000 to a campus initiative to fight antisemitism, and $50,000 to each plaintiff.
Continue reading...Man said chants began when a cashier shouted ‘Free Palestine’ after noticing he and his son were wearing kippahs
A Jewish father and his six-year-old son were targeted by a mob on Sunday chanting “Free Palestine” and “murderers” at a service station near Milan, with the man eventually pushed to the floor and repeatedly kicked, in the latest of a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across Europe.
According to the victim – a 52-year-old French Jew who lives in France and gave his name only as Elie– the incident began when a cashier shouted “Free Palestine”, upon noticing that he and his son were wearing kippahs.
Continue reading...As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom
In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed.
Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US.
Continue reading...Giridharan Sivaraman says he hopes to meet Jillian Segal to discuss her proposals and their implications for fundamental rights and freedoms
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Australia’s race discrimination commissioner has warned there is limited detail in how Jillian Segal’s plan to combat antisemitism would be implemented, and said he would work with her to ensure it does not restrict fundamental rights and freedoms.
Giridharan Sivaraman has responded to the antisemitism envoy’s 20-page plan, released last Thursday, which made a range of recommendations, including withholding government funding from universities that “facilitate, enable or fail to act against antisemitism” and monitoring media organisations “to avoid accepting false or distorted narratives”.
Continue reading...Records show company co-directed by Jillian Segal’s husband donated $50,000 in 2024 to lobby group which campaigned against Albanese and pro-Palestine protests
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Australia’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, says she had no involvement in a major donation from her husband’s company to the controversial conservative campaign group Advance, which has strongly railed against overseas immigration, pro-Palestine protests and the Labor government.
Guardian Australia first reported in February that Henroth Investments Pty Ltd had donated $50,000 to Advance in 2023-24, according to Australian Electoral Commission annual donation disclosure figures. One of that company’s directors, according to corporate records, is John Roth – Segal’s husband.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Labor Friends of Palestine concerned by Jillian Segal’s recommendation government adopt IHRA’s contested definition of antisemitism
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A “groundswell” of Labor rank-and-file members are urging the government to reject key recommendations from the federal antisemitism envoy, according to an internal lobby group, urging a focus on anti-racism education rather than more contentious ideas such as stripping funding from universities and arts bodies.
Labor Friends of Palestine, an internal campaign group of members and politicians, said it was concerned about anti-Jewish hatred, but would be troubled about wider adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s contested definition of antisemitism, as recommended by Jillian Segal in a wide-ranging plan last week.
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Continue reading...xAI’s lengthy apology for antisemitic remarks says they ‘apologize for the horrific behavior many experienced’
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has issued an apology after its chatbot Grok made a slew of antisemitic and Adolf Hitler-praising comments earlier this week on X.
On Saturday, xAI released a lengthy apology in which it said: “First off, we deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced.”
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Australia’s biggest peanut supplier set to shut down
The corporate owners of Australia’s biggest peanut processor will scale down the century-old business in the coming 18 months before shutting it down for good.
There isn’t detail, and it’s unclear whether those tariffs will ever actually be applied.
We do know that the contributions from the pharmaceutical industry in the US to that investigation has been to urge the US government to focus their levers on non-friendly countries and not apply tariffs or punitive levers to allies such as Australia.
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