'Hitler was right' is trending again — and it's not 1939.

The normalization of antisemitism reveals a culture increasingly willing to debate (rather than condemn) explicit hatred of Jews.

photo: Anti-Defamation League

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This is a guest essay by Ido Singer, the child of a Holocaust survivor who writes the newsletter “When I Should Have Died.”

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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It’s not hypothetical. It’s not historical. It’s present tense.

“Hitler was right” — spray-painted on a sidewalk one block from a synagogue in Broward County, Florida. April 2024.

“Hitler was right” — chanted by a German-language rapper on TikTok, his face morphing into Hitler’s as he cites Israel’s war in Gaza. October 2025.

“Hitler was right” — not in 1939, in 2026.

I wear my Star of David everywhere. I wear it proudly. But I know what it means when I put it on. It means I’m marking myself. It means someone, somewhere, might look at it and think: “There’s one.” It means my kids, who attend a Jewish day school, have to walk past security guards every morning. It means my kids will grow up knowing that swastikas aren’t something from a history book. They’re something that gets spray painted on synagogue walls.

Because that’s what happens now. Not in Germany in 1939. In America and all over the world in 2026.

Two days after the October 7th massacre, more than 1,000 pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside the Sydney Opera House, which had been lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag to mourn the 1,200 Israelis murdered by Hamas. The chants begin. “F*** the Jews!” “Where’s the Jews?” And according to multiple eyewitnesses who signed statutory declarations: “Gas the Jews!”

The New South Wales Police later conducted a “forensic analysis” and claimed they found no evidence of the exact phrase “Gas the Jews.” They said it was “Where’s the Jews” instead. As if that’s better. As if asking “Where’s the Jews” at a rally celebrating a massacre isn’t a threat. As if the distinction between “gas” and “where’s” matters when you’re a Jew standing in the crowd wondering if you’re about to be found. The Australian Jewish community pointed this out. The police ignored them. The rally continued. Then came the Bondi Beach massacre during Chanukah last December.

“Hitler was right” was spray-painted on a sidewalk — one block from a synagogue. Not in a back alley. On a public sidewalk. Where children walk.

In Florida, multiple students harassed a Jewish classmate with antisemitic comments, including: “Kill the Jews!” An individual approached Jewish university students who were participating in a gathering with Israeli flags and said: “I will shoot you.” Multiple synagogues have been targeted across Florida, including a bomb threat via email. The message said: “I hate jews and they must all die in this attack I have placed on your synagogue. The bomb will kill you all.” There were 82 bomb threats targeting Jewish institutions in Florida in 2024 alone. Not 1942, but 2024.

At New York University, Jewish students attended a silent vigil supporting Israel. Nearby, faculty, and student members of pro-Palestinian groups burned an Israeli flag. They madee “slit your throat” gestures toward Jewish students. They screamed epithets. The students sued New York University, claiming the university allowed students to chant “Gas the Jews!” and did nothing to stop it.

At the University of California, Berkeley, 60 anti-Israel activists invaded a vacant university building. They vandalized the walls with graffiti, including: “Zionism is Nazism,” “Martyrs Never Die,” and a Star of David equated with a swastika. Photographers documented the vandalism. The university spokesperson said police were “monitoring” the situation. No arrests were made.

At Columbia University, dozens of masked and unmasked demonstrators ran through Hamilton Hall shouting “Free Palestine!” and “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!” They scrawled graffiti throughout the building including swastikas. A campus security officer took photos for documentation. He noted that demonstrators had done the same thing in other buildings on recent nights. University officials declined to investigate — because the graffiti was “free speech.” Because it was “written in chalk and could be erased.” Swastikas are free speech now, as long as they’re in chalk.

At Michigan State University, the Chabad Jewish Center was attacked twice in one week this past December. First, rocks were thrown at the building just after midnight. The reinforced glass held. Second, Nazi swastikas were spray-painted on the front door and more rocks were thrown. This time, a window broke. Police believe the same individual carried out both attacks. They are treating the incidents as “possible linked hate crimes.” Possible, right.

The Anti-Defamation League’s 2024 audit found that 52 percent of antisemitic incidents at independent schools involved a swastika. Not in 1930s Germany, in 2024 America.

I think about my grandfather Olek, who was separated from his family and lost almost all of them during the Holocaust. He had to send my father and his sister into hiding for six years. He spent six years between three camps, enduring death marches. He survived and made it to Israel in 1950. He built a life and had grandchildren. And 76 years later, his grandson wears a Star of David around his neck in North Carolina, and wonders if today is the day someone decides to try and do something about it.

This is our inheritance. Not the Holocaust. Not the gas chambers. Not the camps. The waiting. Waiting for the next “Hitler was right.” Waiting for the next swastika. Waiting for the next bomb threat. Waiting for the next assault. Waiting for someone to decide that genocide threats are no longer free speech but actual threats.

We’re still waiting.

There were 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2023, a 140-percent increase from the 3,698 incidents in 2022 — the highest number since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking in 1979. Assaults are up 45 percent, vandalism is up 69 percent, and harassment is up 184 percent. Approximately 70 percent of all religion-based hate crimes in 2023 were antisemitic, while Jews make up 2.4 percent of the U.S. population.

My daughters are 11. My boy is 8. They go to Jewish day school. Every morning, they walk past security guards — not because their school is in a dangerous neighborhood. Far from it. Because their school is Jewish. They practice lockdown drills — not for school shooters, but for people who want to kill Jews. They learn about the Holocaust in age-appropriate ways. And then they go home and see swastikas spray painted on buildings.

And they ask: “Why do people hate us?” I don’t have a good answer. There’s never been a “good” answer to that question. Because the truth is: They hate us because we exist. They hate us because we are a minuscule minority who refuses to accept the “victim” moniker, who succeeds in an astoundingly high clip, disproportionate to the size of our population, and because we fight back and have the means to do so.

They really don’t like it when we fight back. That hatred is treated as legitimate political discourse. When you hear “Hitler was right” in 2026, here’s what you learn: You learn that 80 years is not enough time for the world to decide that genocide is bad. You learn that swastikas are “free speech” as long as they’re written in chalk. You learn that chanting “Gas the Jews!” is debatable. Maybe it was “Where’s the Jews.” Does it matter?

You learn that bomb threats targeting 82 Jewish institutions in one state in one year is not enough to warrant serious action. You learn that universities will condemn antisemitism in statements, but won’t arrest the people spray painting swastikas in their buildings. You learn that a Jewish teacher can have “KILL ALL JEWS” written in their classroom and it will be investigated, condemned, and then forgotten.

You learn that Jewish students can be heckled with slurs, assaulted for wearing a Star of David, and locked in a library while protesters pound on the doors, and it will be described as “no indication that the protesters intended to harm” them.

You learn that Jewish blood is still cheap. You learn that we are still targets. You learn that the inheritance continues.

Most painful of all, you hear similar slurs coming from people you considered to be your friends. I have “friends” who revealed themselves after October 7th, who apparently were just sitting in the shadows, waiting for that opportune moment to come out and say what they really feel, since it’s more “acceptable” to do so in 2026.

Those “friends” repeated some of the most vile slurs and blood libels I have ever heard. They have desecrated the memory of my family, of all of us Jews. They run cover for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Jihadi in a suit, and they repeat lies we have heard for hundreds of years. Dates change, but the lies endure time.

I wear my Star of David everywhere. I will not hide. But I won’t put an Israeli flag on my car. I won’t put one on my house — not because I’m ashamed, because I have children. And they didn’t ask to inherit this. But they are inheriting this, just like I inherited it from my father Edward, who inherited it from his father Olek, who inherited it from every generation of Jews who came before.

The inheritance of being a target; the inheritance of hearing “Hitler was right” and knowing that the people saying it face no real consequences; the inheritance of watching universities, police departments, governments, and legal systems treat genocide threats as free speech; the inheritance of waiting — waiting for the next attack, waiting for the world to care, waiting for “Never Again” to mean something.

We’re still waiting.

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