By: Fern Sidman

By any historical measure, Hanukkah is a festival rooted in defiance: a commemoration of resilience against forces that sought to extinguish Jewish faith, identity, and continuity. Yet as candles were lit this year in synagogues, homes, and public squares across the world, that ancient symbolism has collided with a modern and deeply unsettling reality. Across the West, Jewish communities are experiencing a palpable and intensifying sense of vulnerability—fueled by a convergence of confirmed acts of violence, foiled terrorist plots, and an accelerating climate of intimidation that has transformed fear from an abstract concern into a lived condition.

The most indisputable of these events occurred in Australia, where a lethal attack on Jewish families celebrating Hanukkah left multiple people dead and wounded. Authorities described the incident as a hate-driven assault, and investigators have pointed to Islamist extremist ideology as a motivating factor. That massacre, now widely regarded as one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks in Australia’s modern history, sent shockwaves far beyond Sydney’s Jewish community. It reverberated through diasporas worldwide, reinforcing the grim recognition that Jewish gatherings—once assumed to be sanctuaries of communal safety—are increasingly perceived as viable targets.

In New York City, a separate but no less disturbing incident underscored the same vulnerability. Orthodox Jewish men returning from a Hanukkah event were accosted on the subway, subjected to explicit death threats, physical intimidation, and antisemitic slurs. Police are investigating the encounter as a hate crime, and video footage circulated widely offered a raw and chilling portrait of how quickly religious visibility can attract violent hostility in public spaces once considered routine.

In Europe, Jewish celebrations have required extraordinary police protection. In Amsterdam, violent demonstrators disrupted a Hanukkah event, forcing authorities to form human barricades around families lighting candles. Dozens were arrested. The image of armed officers shielding Jewish parents and children during a religious festival has become emblematic of a broader continental anxiety: that public Jewish life now necessitates security measures once reserved for heads of state.

Beyond these confirmed incidents lies a second layer of concern—one defined not solely by acts that occurred, but by those that were narrowly prevented. Security services in Germany and Poland have confirmed that Islamist terrorist plots targeting Christmas markets were recently foiled, reinforcing intelligence assessments that mass-casualty attacks against civilian gatherings remain an active threat across Europe. In Canada, the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre has warned that a terrorist attack is now a “realistic possibility,” an unusually blunt phrasing that has heightened alert levels nationwide.

France, responding to similar threat assessments, has taken the extraordinary step of canceling New Year’s Eve celebrations in several municipalities, citing an elevated risk environment. While such measures are not specific to Jewish targets, they form part of a wider mosaic of instability—one in which religious and cultural gatherings increasingly intersect with security vulnerabilities.

It is within this tense atmosphere that a cascade of claims has circulated rapidly online, particularly on social media. Reports alleging the murders of Jewish professors in the United States and fatal attacks at American universities spread with alarming speed during the early days of Hanukkah. As of this writing, however, law enforcement agencies and major news organizations have not substantiated several of these claims. Their viral dissemination, nonetheless, is itself instructive. It reflects a psychological environment in which such allegations feel instantly plausible to many Jews—not because they are confirmed, but because the broader context has eroded confidence in safety and institutional protection.

This phenomenon is a defining feature of the current moment. Jewish communities are not only responding to what has happened, but to what increasingly feels possible. When homes in the United States are reportedly targeted for displaying Hanukkah decorations, when assailants shout political slogans while firing weapons, and when universities become flashpoints for ideological hostility, the cumulative effect is a sense that antisemitism has migrated from the margins into daily life.

What distinguishes this moment from previous spikes in antisemitic incidents is its simultaneity and transnational character. The threats are not confined to one country, political system, or cultural context. They appear in liberal democracies and across continents, often animated by a fusion of extremist ideology, conspiracy thinking, and the moral laundering of antisemitism through geopolitical rhetoric. As Jewish leaders have repeatedly warned, hostility toward Israel is increasingly weaponized as a socially acceptable proxy for animus toward Jews themselves—an evolution that renders traditional distinctions obsolete in moments of violence.

Equally troubling is the erosion of moral clarity among institutions that once served as bulwarks against such hatred. Jewish students and faculty report feeling isolated on campuses, uncertain whether their identities will be defended with the same vigor afforded to others. When acts of violence or intimidation are met with equivocation, silence, or euphemistic language, the message received is not neutrality—but abandonment.

The implications extend beyond the Jewish community. History offers no shortage of evidence that antisemitism is rarely an endpoint. It functions instead as an early warning system for democratic decay, signaling a society’s growing tolerance for dehumanization. When Jews are targeted without consequence, other minorities inevitably follow. The security alerts now blanketing Western capitals are not coincidental; they are part of a broader pattern of ideological radicalization that thrives where ambiguity replaces resolve.

Hanukkah’s central lesson is not merely about survival, but about moral agency—the insistence that darkness must be confronted, not accommodated. The current crisis demands more than candlelight vigils and statements of concern. It requires decisive action: rigorous enforcement of hate-crime laws, unequivocal condemnation of antisemitism in all its forms, and a refusal to excuse violence under the guise of political grievance.

The West is, indeed, under strain. Whether it is under coordinated attack or suffering from an accumulation of ideological failures is a matter for intelligence agencies and historians to debate. But for Jewish families weighing whether it is safe to attend synagogue, wear a yarmulke, or light a menorah in public, the distinction is academic.

The question, then, is not only what is happening—but what will be done. Hanukkah teaches that miracles occur not through passivity, but through courage. In this moment, courage must come not only from those under threat, but from the societies that claim to stand for pluralism, liberty, and the inviolable dignity of human life.