Two years after the October 7 massacre in Israel, when Hamas terrorists slaughtered, raped, and kidnapped Jews for being Jews, the same ideology of hatred has claimed more victims, this time in Europe.
On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, two worshipers were killed in a murderous attack outside a synagogue in Manchester. They came to pray. They left in body bags.
Eighty years after the Holocaust, Jewish blood is again being spilled on European soil.
Once again, we hear the same refrain: more guards, more cameras, higher walls. However, Jews should not have to pray behind barricades. Security is essential, but it is not the solution.
The deadly power of words
You cannot defeat antisemitism with steel doors, because antisemitism does not begin with bullets; it begins with words.
No killer acts in a vacuum. He breathes the same poisoned air as those who demonize Israel and vilify Jews day after day. Long before a man pulls a trigger or presses an accelerator, the hate has already been sown in classrooms, online, in politics, and in the media.
The Holocaust did not begin in Auschwitz; it began with speeches and slogans. It began with propaganda that turned Jews into monsters and murder into virtue.
Those words paved the road to genocide.
Today, social media spreads that same poison at the speed of light. Platforms that censor everything from jokes to misinformation allow torrents of antisemitic abuse to flow freely.
University campuses chant “From the river to the sea” and “Globalize the Intifada,” politicians court populist mobs with anti-Israel rhetoric, and international organizations issue one-sided condemnations that legitimize the singling out of the world’s only Jewish state.
Is it any wonder that individuals act on those lies?
The man who murdered two Jews in Manchester did not act alone. He was enabled by the chorus of voices that made him believe his hate was righteous. Every politician who demonizes Israel, every journalist who repeats a libel, every academic who justifies violence – they all help prepare the weapon.
Words from leaders matter most. When a European prime minister recognizes a Palestinian state after Israelis were butchered and while hostages remain in captivity, the message to extremists is unmistakable: terrorism works, Jewish suffering is negotiable, and Jewish lives are expendable.
Europe has seen this before. The slogans have changed, the hashtags are new, but the plot is the same – incitement, demonization, isolation, and then violence.
We must end the dangerous illusion that security alone will save us. Guards protect buildings; they cannot protect the truth. Cameras deter attackers; they do not deter ideologies.
If we want to protect Jewish life, we must delegitimize antisemitism at its root.
Governments must treat incitement as the first stage of terrorism, because that is what it is. Schools must teach not only the history of antisemitism but also its modern mutations.
Media outlets must hold themselves to a single moral standard, refusing to disguise bigotry as “criticism of Israel,” and ordinary citizens must refuse to stay silent when lies are told about Jews or Israel in the classroom, in parliament, in the press, or online.
The deadly attack at a synagogue in Manchester is not only a Jewish tragedy; it is a European one. Two years after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Europe is being tested.
“Never Again” was never meant to be a slogan for memorial ceremonies. It was a sacred promise, one that must be kept in the streets, online, and in the hearts of those who lead.
The poison of antisemitism is not hidden. It is shouted, broadcast, and tweeted daily. What is new is its reach, its ferocity, its respectability, and its mainstreaming. It now seeps into every institution, every debate, and every platform.
If Europe does not find the courage to confront this hate at the level of words, there will be more funerals, more tears, and more lives stolen. The time to act is now, before the incitement kills again.
We must act on behalf of the two Jews killed in Manchester, for the hostages still waiting to come home, for every Jew who wants only to live and pray in peace, and for the moral soul of Europe itself.
The writer is president of the European Jewish Congress, the democratically elected representative body of European Jewish communities.