Antisemitism. 

It’s a word they teach us in high school. One we finally learn the definition of in an English class during sophomore year. 

It’s an action we are told about in middle school, our innocent ears finally allowed to handle its ugliness. The Holocaust. Scapegoating. Massacres. Murders. 

Hatred. 

Antisemitism. Ironically, it’s a word no one understands. 

It’s a phrase no one cares to evaluate, learn, memorize, stop. 

Here’s my definition of antisemitism: the cruelest action taken against any minority group in history, stretching beyond years and beyond measure. It is the most acute form of hatred against a religious group, and is one of the longest standing forms of bigotry. 

Antisemitism has stretched since the beginning of time, ever since in the Middle Ages in Europe.

Jews, initially, were blamed for starting the Bubonic Plague. For context, this deadly disease took out almost half of all of Europe’s population. 

Jews, apparently, spread the Plague by poisoning the wells.

But how did the Plague really spread across Europe? It came through the deadly interactions of the Silk Road Trade Routes, the exchanges both incredibly helpful and tragic to the history of Afro-Eurasia. 

Six hundred years later, and Jews are still scapegoated during the 20th century. 

The Holocaust was an active genocide against Judaism. It was an extermination, and it was deliberate. 

The death count stands at eleven million people murdered by the propaganda, the hatred, the teachings to ostracize enacted by the Nazi regime. 

Six million Jews were killed, whether that be in the concentration camps or on the perfect streets of pretty neighborhoods. Five million other “undesirables” stand with them in death. 

Even after World War II, the globe could not understand the lesson. The Holocaust was a genocide, one of the most horrific enactments against any group of people during the 20th century. But after World War II, only 5,000 Jews were allowed to enter the borders of our nation to escape the twisted alleys of Europe. 

The world doesn’t follow history, it ignores it. Because if we had, we wouldn’t be spinning in the chaos of a war. One launched on the morning of October 7, 2023. 

Hamas, a militant group based in the Middle East, attacked Israel late last year, and 1,200 people died. 240 others were taken hostage and 133 still remain in the horrid captivity. There were numerous reports that Hamas systematically raped , burned, and murdered victims on October 7, 2023.

It hits too close to home, especially when considering the violent actions of less than a century ago. 

Since then, there has been a dramatic rise in antisemitism. But, reports refuse to acknowledge the intensity of it. 

The Holocaust started with propaganda, just like now. Today, across social media, people are being fed negative opinions about Israel and Jews. Antisemitism is raging in the hearts of comment sections; some have gone as far as to suggest  the Jewish community should not have a right to exist. That they’re devils in disguise. . 

And how is that supposed to calm the storm into a ceasefire? 

As much as our generation wants to rally in the street to bring justice to the world again, how much longer can we rely on our freedom of speech before we rip off the satin curtain of politics?

Antisemitism is not a joke. It is not fake. It is not an annoying inconvenience. 

It is a form of hatred against a small group. Just like racism and homophobia and Islamophobia and xenophobia and everything else that the world has orchestrated as cruel behaviors enacted on marginalized groups. 

So, while my culture might be a minority and might not be widely participated in, that should not be a justification for the unruly hatred across the world. 

I hope peace comes quickly for the Israelis and Palestinians. I hope a peace agreement comes quickly for Gaza and the Middle East. 

But antisemitism needs to stop. Because I might not know everything in the world, but I do know this: it is complete madness to take deliberate action against a universal religion decade after decade, century after century.

“L’chaim”, to life.