Israel’s Top Diplomat Calls on Jews to Make Aliyah Amid Global Surge in Antisemitic Violence

Amid a global surge in antisemitic violence, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has urged Jews living abroad to make aliyah to Israel, warning that diaspora communities are increasingly vulnerable to hatred and hostility as foreign governments fail to protect them.

“Over the past year, we have concentrated efforts in the fight against the rising antisemitism around the world,” Saar said Sunday during a Hanukkah candle-lighting event in Rishon LeZion, a city in central Israel.

“We demanded that foreign governments take real steps against the new antisemitism. Few did so. Most allowed an unrestrained surge of overt antisemitism in the public sphere,” the top Israeli diplomat continued. 

Saar’s latest remarks come in the wake of a deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach last Sunday, which left 15 dead and at least 40 injured. 

Earlier this year, a string of deadly terrorist attacks also targeted Jewish communities, including the Yom Kippur assault in Manchester that killed two Jewish men, the firebombing of a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado – which killed one and injured 13 – and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC.

“Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world. Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said during his speech. 

“We are waiting for you here with open arms. With love. In the true home of the Jewish people. Why raise your children in this atmosphere?” the Israeli diplomat continued. “Come with your families to the land of our forefathers, to the State of Israel, where the Jews taught the entire world what Jewish self-defense means. The time has come.”

Jewish communities around the world, especially in Europe, have faced a troubling surge in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Jewish leaders have consistently called on authorities to take swift action against the rising wave of targeted attacks and anti-Jewish hate crimes, ranging from the vandalism of murals and businesses to violent physical assaults, that their communities continue to face. 

In the United Kingdom, more than half of British Jews — 51 percent — believe they have no long-term future in the country or elsewhere in Europe, according to a survey conducted by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, released Monday.

Amid this climate of rising hostility, almost half of British Jews (45 percent) report feeling unwelcome in the UK, while a majority (61 percent) have considered leaving the country in the past two years, citing the recent surge in antisemitism as the main reason.

The newly released report also found that 59 percent of British Jews try to avoid displaying visible signs of their Jewish identity out of fear of antisemitic attacks, while 96 percent believe that Jews in Britain are less safe now than they were before the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Fewer than one in ten British Jews believe authorities are doing enough to tackle antisemitism, with only 14 percent feeling that the police are adequately protecting them.

In France, the local Jewish community has also faced a growing climate of hostility and antisemitic violence, which has even extended into politics, sparking national debates and drawing condemnation from leaders and civil society groups.

In one of the latest controversies, Bernard Bazinet, the mayor of Augignac in the southwestern Dordogne region, was expelled from the French Socialist Party earlier this month after posting antisemitic comments online about Israel’s participation in the Eurovision Song Contest.

“France is too Jewish to boycott [Eurovision]!” Bazinet wrote in a post on Facebook.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez strongly condemned Bazinet’s comments, warning that he could face sanctions ranging from suspension to outright dismissal.

However, the rising wave of antisemitic attacks and hatred has spread beyond Western countries, reaching nations across the Eastern Mediterranean and other regions worldwide.

On Sunday, a group of Jews in Istanbul were attacked by pro-Palestinian protesters while on their way to light the eighth and final Hanukkah candle at the Neve Shalom synagogue.

According to widely circulated social media videos, the attackers approached the group while shouting, “These Zionists should leave this country,” waving Palestinian flags as they tried to get closer.

In a separate incident over the weekend, an Israeli man was attacked outside the hotel where he was staying in Limassol, Cyprus, after assailants reportedly heard him speaking Hebrew on the phone.

According to the victim’s father, his son was talking on the phone when a man approached him, asked for a cigarette, and then brutally assaulted him.

The victim was rushed to a local hospital and then flown to Israel on Sunday for emergency eye surgery after the attack, but doctors were unable to save his vision.

“My son, a young Israeli, was violently attacked at the entrance to the hotel where he was staying in Cyprus. Not on the street, not in a bar. At the entrance to the hotel — a place that is supposed to be safe and secure,” the victim’s father wrote in a post on Facebook. “He was brutally beaten, injured in the head and face, and evacuated for medical treatment.”