On April 24, 2025, the world observes Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, a solemn occasion honoring the six million Jews murdered by the Nazi regime during World War II. This year’s remembrance comes at a time of escalating danger, as antisemitism is no longer confined to the fringes—it is erupting across cities, campuses, parliaments, and digital platforms in an explosive wave resembling mass hysteria.
This is not just remembrance. It is a wake-up call.
The Alarming Resurgence of Antisemitism
The world is witnessing a disturbing rise in antisemitic incidents, many cloaked in the language of activism or political protest. But beneath the surface, the old hatred festers again.
According to the Antisemitism Worldwide Report 2025 from Tel Aviv University, global antisemitic attacks rose dramatically following the Hamas terrorist assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. In the months that followed, antisemitic assaults, synagogue vandalism, online hate, and calls for Jewish extermination surged to levels unseen since the 1940s.
In Australia, antisemitic incidents jumped from 1,200 in 2023 to 1,713 in 2024. Italy also reported a troubling increase. Meanwhile, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have faced alarming spikes in Jewish-targeted hate crimes, and in many cases, government authorities seem either paralyzed or politically unwilling to act decisively.
In the United States, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported over 8,000 antisemitic incidents in 2024 alone, including over 3,000 on college campuses. Jewish students at leading institutions like Harvard, Columbia, and UCLA have reported being physically attacked, doxxed, and banned from participating in student events. In some cases, campus leadership has refused to intervene, citing “free speech” while ignoring open calls for Jewish genocide.
Let us be clear: Antisemitism today is no longer disguised. It is loud, proud, organized, and dangerous.
Why Holocaust Remembrance Still Matters
With each passing year, Holocaust survivors grow older. Many have died. Those who remain carry the weight of memory—and they are warning us.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, once said: “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” Remembrance is not symbolic. It is necessary.
The Nazi regime’s extermination campaign wiped out two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. Jews were rounded up from their homes, herded into ghettos, deported in cattle cars, and systematically murdered in industrialized death camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Sobibor.
Today, antisemitism wears new masks—anti-Zionism, intersectionality, “decolonization.” But the core hatred remains the same: Jews are singled out, blamed, and threatened. Once again, silence and appeasement are enabling the spread.
Remembering the Holocaust is not an act of the past. It is a warning for the present.
Holocaust Education: A Pillar of Prevention
In 2025, fewer than half of American millennials can accurately name a Nazi concentration camp. In Europe, the numbers are even worse. The erosion of historical knowledge is one of the most dangerous enablers of rising hate.
Holocaust education must be strengthened, mandated, and made universal. It should be a core part of every school curriculum—not a liberal elective or optional module.
Young people must learn the truth: how quickly ordinary societies became accomplices in genocide, how propaganda was weaponized, how silence became complicity, and how neighbors turned on neighbors. The Holocaust did not begin in Auschwitz—it began with words, boycotts, graffiti, and dehumanization.
We are seeing all of that again—today.
The Role of Governments in Confronting Hate
Governments must stop treating antisemitism as an issue of symbolic concern and treat it as the national security crisis it is.
Strong steps include:
- Criminalizing antisemitic incitement—online and offline.
- Protecting Jewish institutions, including synagogues, schools, and community centers, with permanent funding for security.
- Defunding universities that tolerate antisemitic extremism and propaganda.
- Withholding foreign aid from nations that promote Holocaust denial or fund antisemitic hate groups.
- Reinforcing alliances with Israel, the only Jewish state and the frontline against jihadist terror.
The United States and other Western nations cannot afford moral neutrality. Weakness only emboldens the haters.
Survivor Testimonies: Bearing Witness
As survivors age, their testimonies have become more vital than ever. Their stories are living warnings.
One such voice is Eva Schloss, stepsister of Anne Frank and Auschwitz survivor. At 95 years old, she continues to speak out, describing the brutal realities of life in the camps and warning against the new wave of antisemitism sweeping across Europe and the United States.
“I am deeply worried,” Schloss recently said. “I see the same hate I lived through being normalized again. When Jews are afraid to walk down the street wearing a Star of David, something is terribly wrong.”
She is right. And it is time the world listens.
The Israel Factor: Targeting the Jewish State
Today’s antisemitism is often cloaked as anti-Israel activism. But the line is increasingly easy to see.
When mobs chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” they are not advocating for coexistence. They are calling for the eradication of Israel—a genocidal vision that would mean the slaughter or expulsion of over 7 million Jews.
When pro-Hamas rallies erupt in cities like London and New York after Israeli civilians are butchered, we are not seeing “protests”—we are seeing celebrations of terror.
Targeting Israel as a stand-in for the Jewish people is not new. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination.” It is time every nation formally adopt this definition and act on it.
Never Again Must Mean Now
The words Never Again have been spoken for decades. But they ring hollow if they are not followed by action.
If the world truly means Never Again, then:
- Every synagogue attacked must be avenged with justice.
- Every Jewish student harassed must be defended.
- Every Holocaust survivor must be honored while still alive.
- Every hate group promoting Jewish genocide must be dismantled.
- Every nation tolerating antisemitic mobs must be held accountable.
A Final Word
On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us remember not just the victims, but the warnings they left behind. The ovens of Auschwitz are cold now—but the hate that built them is heating up again.
Let this not be another chapter in the long history of Jewish persecution. Let this be the moment free societies stood up and said: Enough.
We do not remember to mourn. We remember to fight.
Featured image credit: DepositPhotos.com
