From Rhetoric to Violence: Antisemitic Attacks Are Escalating

The violence against Jews is not slowing down. It is escalating and spreading across borders.

After the antisemitic attack in Sydney, the next incidents came quickly. In New York City, several Jews, including a Chabad rabbi, were violently assaulted on the subway while the attacker shouted death threats. Just two days later, a visibly Jewish man was stabbed in broad daylight on a Manhattan sidewalk as antisemitic slurs were hurled at him.

New York is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. For generations, it was a city where Jews felt safe. That sense of security is rapidly eroding.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has described antisemitic violence abroad as vile, yet he refuses to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada.” Discouraging its use is not a condemnation — it is appeasement. And while Mamdani has been vocal against Islamophobia, he has remained silent about the antisemitic attacks that just took place in his own city.

This silence matters because rhetoric has consequences. What we are witnessing now is what happens when violent slogans are normalized and when warnings are ignored.