The Jewish Priority We Can’t Ignore in 2026

After a surreal 2025 that overflowed with antisemitism of all kinds, 2026 must be the year that Jews treat Jew-hatred with unprecedented urgency.

photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Nachum Kaplan, who writes the newsletter, “Moral Clarity.”

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

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If 2025 is remembered for anything across the Jewish world, it will be for shattering any remaining delusions that antisemitism was an historical artifact just having an ugly moment.

Even a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, ending the fighting about which the anti-Israel brigade claimed to be protesting, did not stop attacks on Diaspora Jews. Jew-hatred has reasserted itself openly, confidently, and with institutional protection.

Given two years have passed since the October 7th pogrom, this was not a case of overwhelmed authorities grappling with an unexpected surge in antisemitism. No one was confused or lacked information. The only things lacking were backbones and moral GPS systems.

If anything distinguished 2025, it was the normalization of antisemitism. Hatred no longer required camouflage. It entered through the front door, issued press releases, retained counsel, and found allies within institutions that once styled themselves as moral arbiters. Antisemitism stopped pretending to be a deviation. It presented itself as a legitimate worldview, and one demanding accommodation.

It will be the year we saw how quickly Western democracies’ abandoned their much-vaunted values when it come to Jewish victims, regaining them momentarily only in response to the most heinous acts.

What follows is not a warning; it is a record.

1) Calling for murder became acceptable public speech.

Throughout 2025, chants of “Globalize the intifada!” echoed through mass demonstrations in London, Sydney, Toronto, New York, and capitals across Europe. This was not obscure or metaphorical rhetoric. It is a slogan steeped in suicide bombings, mass shootings, and the deliberate targeting of Jews.

Police forces largely stood aside. Politicians wrung their hands. Commentators bloviated about free speech. In practice, this meant calls for Jewish violence were treated as a minor public-order inconvenience rather than civilizational DEFCON 1.

What rendered the tolerance of these chants uniquely grotesque was not ignorance, but precedent. Western states have banned slogans linked to jihadism, white supremacy, and ethnic violence before — swiftly, decisively, and without interminable seminars on nuance. Hesitation appeared only when Jews were the targets. Governments that grasp instantly how language radicalizes in other contexts suddenly collapsed into epistemological paralysis.

Only in the final weeks of the year, following the appalling Bondi Beach massacre in Australia that killed 16 Jews and injured dozens of others, did officials begin to rediscover the elementary truth that words carry meaning and consequences — and that permitting death chants might not be the wisest or most moral choice a society can make.

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2) Jewish childhood was placed under permanent armed guard.

Across the UK, France, Australia, and North America, Jewish schools now operate under perpetual security lockdowns: armed guards at gates, police patrols at pick-up time, controlled entry points as routine.

These are not temporary responses to specific threats, but a new normal in which school fences stand like Constantinople’s famous walls.

Governments described these measures as “protective,” a framing as infuriating as it is dishonest. They are, in fact, brick-and-mortar indictments of the state’s failure to guarantee equal citizenship for Jewish children. A generation has been taught, with brutal clarity, that its mere presence requires fortification.

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3) Synagogues were attacked — and then rhetorically laundered.

Synagogues were vandalized, defaced, firebombed, and besieged from Paris to Berlin to Melbourne. The graffiti was unambiguous: “Zionists Out,” “Death to Israel,” swastikas, Stars of David transformed into crosshairs.

Official responses followed a ritualized script: Condemn “hate in all its forms,” urge calm, avoid naming antisemitism. This linguistic laundering mattered. It converted targeted violence into an abstract social malaise, dissolving agency and responsibility into atmosphere.

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4) Jewish students were told to hide, not to belong.

On elite Western campuses, Jewish students were advised — sometimes formally, sometimes quietly — to avoid wearing Jewish symbols, speaking Hebrew, or identifying publicly as Jewish “for their own safety.”

This guidance did not originate with extremists. It came from administrators and faculty who fancied themselves enlightened, and who now stand exposed as moral grifters.

The lesson was medieval: Visibility invites danger, survival requires concealment. Universities that boast of inclusion quietly taught Jews the oldest survival tactic in European history.

What Jewish students were told was not merely to hide, but to shrink — to compress themselves until they fit within institutional comfort. Judaism was tolerated only as folklore, cuisine, or private sentiment. Jewish peoplehood, history, and attachment to Israel were treated as contaminants.

The message was unmistakable: You may exist, but not fully. You may belong, but conditionally. If violence follows, accountability will be diffused until it disappears.

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5) “Anti-Zionism” was used to exclude Jews legally.

Student unions and activist bodies passed motions excluding “Zionists” from participation — a semantic maneuver designed to bar the vast majority of Jews while insisting it was not antisemitic.

Jewish students were denied leadership roles, barred from clubs, or told they could participate only if they publicly renounced Israel. No other minority group faced ideological loyalty tests of this kind.

The Jew-Zionist distinction functioned precisely as intended: plausible deniability for discrimination, despite being about as plausible as my ambitions of winning the World Chess Championship.

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6) Visible Jewishness became grounds for assault.

Across the Diaspora, Jews were harassed or attacked for wearing Stars of David, synagogue attire, or Hebrew jewelry. In numerous cases, assailants explicitly cited Gaza or Israel as justification.

Coverage often framed these attacks as unfortunate byproducts of a “heated political climate,” subtly recasting assault as ambient friction rather than hatred. Jewish identity itself was treated as provocation.

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7) Loyalty tests re-entered professional life.

Jewish professionals (doctors, therapists, educators, corporate employees) were pressed to clarify their views on Israel in workplaces that would never dream of interrogating other minorities about global politics.

Silence was construed as complicity. Dissent as moral failure. Statements were demanded not to understand Jews, but to discipline them.

The chilling effect was deliberate — and effective.

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8) Jewish self-defense was policed more aggressively than incitement.

In multiple cities, Jewish counter-protesters responding to chants calling for their annihilation were removed or arrested for “disturbing the peace,” while the genocidal chants continued undisturbed.

The rule was simple: Jews may not escalate, even verbally. Restraint was demanded of the threatened, not the threateners.

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9) The media continued linguistically sanitizing terrorism.

Since October 7th, major media outlets with tremendous reach and influence described Hamas terrorists as “militants” or “fighters,” referred to hostage-taking as “leverage,” and framed Israeli civilians as legitimate “targets.”

This was not carelessness; it was moral engineering. Language was deployed to blur agency, flatten responsibility, and invert victimhood — under the guise of professionalism.

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10) The West congratulated itself for noticing — too late.

By year’s end, governments began acknowledging an “antisemitism problem” announced task forces, banned a handful of slogans, and congratulated themselves on their courage.

What went unacknowledged was the cost of delay: lives warped by fear, terror normalized, Jewish silence internalized. Recognition arrived only when denial became untenable — and even then, grudgingly.

The belated awakening was accompanied by the most obscene self-congratulation. Politicians spoke solemnly of “lessons learned,” as though Jews were collateral damage in a training exercise. Task forces multiplied. Reports were commissioned. Panels convened. The machinery of concern whirred into action precisely when it entailed no risk.

What remained unexamined was the ideological architecture that made antisemitism socially survivable in the first place — the moral hierarchy in which Jewish fear ranked last, Jewish speech was suspect, and Jewish self-assertion was framed as provocation.

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If 2025 was the year antisemitism revealed its new confidence, 2026 must be the year we respond with matching clarity and courage. We cannot rely on governments, institutions, or bystanders to defend what they have repeatedly shown they do not value. Jewish life, visibility, and dignity cannot be treated as optional or negotiable.

Renewed urgency does not mean rhetoric; it means action. It means demanding that laws protecting Jews be enforced with the same rigor applied to other minorities. It means cultivating communities where Jewish children can learn and play without armed gates or the burden of fear. It means rejecting narratives that frame Jewish self-defense as aggression, and refusing to shrink or disappear in the face of hatred.

Above all, it means reclaiming moral authority. Jews must insist on being treated not as a problem to be managed, but as citizens, neighbors, and human beings deserving full protection, respect, and belonging.

2026 cannot be another year of delay. It must be the year that Jews everywhere treat antisemitism as the existential threat it is — not tomorrow, not when convenient, but today, decisively, without apology.

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