Many Jews in the Diaspora relied on a simple mental map for decades: the West was safe, whereas Israel was dangerous. That map will have undergone a severe redrawing by the end of 2025.
Jews throughout the West are reevaluating where “safety” actually is, from American city halls and college quads to the streets of Paris, London, and Berlin.
A series of violent, social, and politically unfriendly acts has undermined the once-strong sense of security in Jewish communities.
More than at any other time in recent memory, Jews throughout the West have started to wonder this year genuinely: is there somewhere outside of Israel that is truly secure for us?
Local politics have also undermined Jewish trust in the West
Voters in the progressive Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts, overwhelmingly approved a grassroots ballot initiative calling on the city to cut ties with Israeli-affiliated businesses, accusing Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid.”
Despite strong opposition from local Jews who said it would sow division and fear, this made Somerville the first city in the United States to support a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)-inspired policy.
Seeing a US community successfully disparage the Jewish state at the voting booth was a frightening indication to many Jewish observers that the general public was becoming antagonistic.
An even greater shock occurred in New York, where Zohran Mamdani, a self-declared anti-Zionist, was elected to City Hall.
In 2025, Mamdani’s unexpected election as mayor of New York City rocked the largest Jewish Diaspora community in the world.
For the first time, a politician with a history of hostility toward the Jewish state and an outspoken rejection of Zionism will be in charge of New York, a city that has long been a symbol of Jewish success in America.
Prior to his election, Mamdani declared himself to be anti-Zionist and even expressed support for the “Holy Land Five” activists who were imprisoned for providing financial support to Hamas.
In fact, a tiny but noteworthy portion of American Jews have responded by turning into “one-issue voters.”
By focusing on security and strength in the face of growing antisemitism, Republicans made surprising gains with Jewish voters in the 2024 elections.
Many devoted Democrats turned to candidates who promised a tougher stance after becoming uneasy with progressives who found it difficult to denounce antisemitism or defend Israel after October 7.
Jewish political donors also started to put pressure on politicians and universities to stop antisemitism on campuses. Jews will reevaluate their allegiances if the liberal establishment fails to ensure their safety.
Perhaps for the first time in contemporary American history, a significant number of Jews are casting their ballots solely on the basis of which leaders they believe can ensure the survival of their community.
Another pillar of the “safe West” myth, the college campus has crumbled for many Jewish students and parents.
In late 2023 and 2024, US universities saw an unprecedented wave of pro-Palestinian protests in response to the Israel-Hamas War.
Demonstrations supporting Gaza erupted on hundreds of campuses; by spring 2024, over 94% of 1,360 student rallies related to the conflict were pro-Palestinian in nature.
Rallies and sit-ins quickly turned into full-fledged “encampments,” tent cities, and quad occupations demanding that colleges boycott Israel and adopt an anti-Zionist stance.
Jewish students and their families found these campus disturbances extremely unsettling. Their classmates’ chanting of “From the river to the sea,” which many Jews interpret as rejecting Israel’s existence, and their occupation of campus buildings under Palestinian flags, felt frightening and alienating to them.
Many Jewish students reported feeling afraid or intimidated about wearing kippot and Star of David necklaces to college.
Jewish affinity groups were sometimes singled out: student governments at New York University, Harvard, and other elite universities took action to stop funding Jewish or pro-Israel clubs due to the tense atmosphere.
While many university leaders condemned antisemitism, Jewish students noted that administrations acted far more swiftly to discipline anti-Palestinian speech than anti-Jewish incidents.
A tsunami of antisemitism in Europe
If Jews in the US are newly anxious, Jews in Europe are outright afraid.
In late 2023, Europe was hit with what Ariel Muzicant, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called an “antisemitic tsunami” as Israel reeled from Hamas’s October 7 terror attack and then struck back in Gaza.
Muzicant, head of the EJC, noted in September 2025 that Europe was witnessing levels of anti-Jewish hate unseen since World War II.
“We expected solidarity and empathy,” he said, “but in countries like Spain, Belgium, or Ireland, we saw exactly the opposite.”
Instead of receiving support, Jewish communities faced street demonstrations spewing antisemitic slogans, vandalism of synagogues and memorials, and in some cases, outright violence.
The consequence, Muzicant warned, is that a growing number of Europe’s 1.4 million Jews feel threatened and are seriously thinking of leaving the continent.
Let’s get into the data to understand this dramatic situation: In France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, reported antisemitic acts surged nearly fourfold from 436 incidents in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023.
French authorities say the spike was driven largely by the aftermath of Hamas’s October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza. Schools have been a particular hotspot.
French schools recorded over 180 antisemitic incidents between October 7, 2023, and January 2024.
One especially horrific case shocked the nation: in June 2024, in a Paris suburb, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was gang-raped by three boys who called her “dirty Jew” and asked if she “supported Israel” while assaulting her.
In sentencing two of the attackers to prison, the judge was explicit that the assault was an anti-Jewish hate crime, stating the girl “would not have been raped if she had not been Jewish.”
The attack sent tremors of fear through every Jewish parent in France. Even in the heart of the République, they are not safe from a new breed of homegrown antisemitism.
In Britain, too, Jewish families speak of 2025 as a pivotal year.
Britain's Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 774 anti-Jewish incidents in just six months in the capital, an unprecedented onslaught. Especially troubling has been a rise in violence against Jewish schoolchildren.
At least 107 school-related antisemitic incidents were reported in half a year, including 41 cases of students being attacked during their daily commute to or from Jewish schools.
In one incident in north London, a 13-year-old boy wearing a kippah was surrounded by two men in balaclavas who performed Nazi salutes, spat, and snarled “dirty Jew” at him.
They then grabbed him by the collar and beat him, leaving him traumatized.
Parents now face a dreadful dilemma, as one London mother put it: “Do I send my kids to a Jewish school, where they’ll be safe inside but attacked once they leave? Or do I put them in a regular school and hope they don’t get bullied for being Jewish?”
The UK’s atmosphere has deteriorated to the point that many Jews are hiding visible signs of their faith.
Dozens of families have removed mezuzot (the parchment scrolls on Jewish doorposts) to avoid being identified; even a well-known model, Caprice Bourret, said she took down her home’s mezuzah out of fear for her children’s safety.
And in a highly publicized incident, TV personality Vanessa Feltz was chased through central London by a pro-Palestinian agitator with a megaphone, who screamed, “Vanessa Feltz, fascist Zionist scum!” at her.
Such scenes were virtually unthinkable in London a few years ago. Now they are part of reality. We’ve heard similar stories from Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and beyond.
In Germany, where sensitivity to antisemitism is arguably the highest, the interior ministry still logged over 2,480 antisemitic offenses in 2023, and that was before the October war ignited an even fiercer spike.
In Berlin, on October 18, 2023, two hooded men threw Molotov cocktails at a synagogue and Jewish school complex in the Mitte district, attempting to set it ablaze.
Although the building’s security prevented the tragedy and German leaders condemned the attack, it sent a message of menace.
A Holocaust survivor in Belgium told reporters that, in the wake of the post-2023 spike in antisemitism, she knows friends who have “packed their bags, ready to flee.”
That phrase “packing bags” is something we know very well as Jews.
It’s something that has happened to us every generation for thousands of years. It hearkens back to a phrase from Europe’s darker times: “sitting on packed suitcases.”
Once, it was said that Jews in 1930s Germany lived with suitcases packed by the door, fearing they might need to leave overnight. After the Holocaust, many people believed that the era of widespread persecution would never return.
Hamas without borders: Terror networks reach Europe
The most alarming revelation is that Hamas and its allies perceive no distinction between Jews residing in Israel, Germany, or Australia.
According to Hamas’s extremist worldview, all Jews, anywhere, are legitimate targets, and recent counterterror operations in Europe have proven this is more than just rhetoric.
Just last month, German authorities carried out a major raid in Berlin and arrested three men suspected of being Hamas operatives.
According to the federal prosecutor, these men, two German nationals and one Lebanese, had been tasked “since the summer” with sourcing firearms and ammunition on German soil for Hamas.
Investigators believe they were planning to use the weapons to carry out murderous attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in Germany. When police seized their stash, they found an AK-47 assault rifle, several pistols, and large quantities of ammo.
It doesn’t take much imagination to guess the intended use: a Mumbai-style shooting at a Berlin synagogue, a massacre at a Jewish community center, or an attack on an Israeli embassy event.
Put simply, these incidents represent a manifestation of Hamas terror in the heart of Europe. The Berlin case is not unique. Other European nations have uncovered similar plots by Hamas-linked or inspired extremists.
In May 2024, British authorities charged two men with plotting a mass shooting to “kill Jewish people” in the north of England using automatic weapons.
Prosecutors said the men were ISIS sympathizers, not Hamas – yet during pro-Palestinian rallies in the UK, disturbing chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” often blended into “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahud” (a battle cry about killing Jews).
In one case, counter-protesters at a 2014 pro-Israel march in Germany shouted, “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas!” – pure genocidal incitement on European streets.
That hatred has only grown louder since 2023.
Intelligence agencies in France and Belgium have long monitored Hamas fundraising or recruitment rings in their Muslim communities.
Now, they fear returning fighters from Syria or even Gaza could turn their skills against European Jewish communities.
The risk is no longer theoretical: in late 2024, France’s domestic spy agency warned that Hamas and Hezbollah “sleeper” operatives might seek to strike Jews in Europe to send a message.
The safe West, it turns out, is seen by jihadists. This situation is viewed as just another front in their war, possibly an easier one, because Jews in Paris or Manchester are generally less guarded than those in Jerusalem or Sderot.
This reality has prompted a grim recalibration among Diaspora Jews. Synagogues across Western capitals are fortifying like embassies. Jewish schools conduct active-shooter drills and hire armed guards.
In places like Malmö, Sweden, or Toulouse, France, where Jewish populations have shrunk after repeated attacks, the few remaining families must decide if they, too, will leave.
As one Jewish security expert in London remarked, “We’ve had to accept that what happens in Israel doesn’t stay in Israel. If Hamas had the opportunity, they would carry out similar attacks here as they did on October 7 [in Israel].”
In 2025, Europe’s Jews know that no amount of Western liberal values or policing can entirely shield them from the reach of those who wish them harm.
There is no doubt that the mindset of the Diaspora is changing.
As one Israeli columnist wrote to anxious Jews abroad: “Our grandparents in Europe asked, ‘Will it really get worse?’ and lived to regret the answer. Today, we must ask, ‘What if it gets worse?’ and live accordingly.”
For a growing number of Jews in the West, 2025 was the year that the question could no longer be avoided.
The answers they arrive at will shape the future of Jewish life on both sides of the ocean. Once again, the packed suitcases, whether literal or metaphorical, play a part in shaping that future.