Visible hatred of the world against the Jews is once more on the rise.  Seventy years after humanity vowed “Never again!”, two generations after the full horrors of the Holocaust were laid bare, it is surging.  Most of us became aware of it when Muslim terrorists struck Jewish businesses in Paris late last year, but it has been growing over recent months.

In January of last year, a gunman entered Paris’s Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, took hostages and killed four Jewish men.  An Israeli man was beaten in Berlin when he asked several locals to stop singing anti-Semitic songs on the subway; In February, another gunman opened fire at Copenhagen’s great synagogue, killing Danish-Israeli guard Dan Uzan, who was providing security for a bat mitzva ceremony taking place inside.  Then came other attacks:  in March a drunken mob attacked a group of people in a synagogue in London; in October a rabbi and two congregants were stabbed in Marseilles; in December fourteen worshipers at a synagogue in Bonneuilsur- Marn, France were seriously injured by liquid poison that was poured on the building’s electronic  lock.

The Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University has issued a report stating that anti-Semitic incidents in London are up 60 percent over a year ago.  In France  they are up 84 percent compared to 2014.  Globally they have increased 40 percent.  The Kantor Center says that 2015 was a “record year” for Jewish emigration from Western Europe.  Seven thousand Jews from France alone emigrated to Israel, and the Israelis are scrambling to make room for them.

In America the same disturbing trends are also evident, although as yet, mostly on college and university campuses.  For example, Lisa Marie Mendez, a UCLA student who is also employed by the UCLA Medical Center, posted this vitriol on Facebook: “F****** Jews. GTFOH with all your Zionist b*******.  Crazy a** f****** troglodyte albino monsters of cultural destruction.  F****** Jews.  GTFOH with your b*******.  Give the Palestinians back their land.  Go back to Poland or whatever freezer-state you’re from, and realize that faith does not constitute race.”

The Kantor Center reports that Seventy-five percent of American university students say they have witnessed anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist incidents. A recent study from the Brandeis Center for Human Rights found that more than half of nearly 1,200 Jewish students surveyed at 55 campuses nationwide reported they have experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus during the last year. Things like swastikas spray-painted on Jewish fraternity houses, "eviction notices" delivered to Jewish students in their dorms, and mock "apartheid walls" which disseminate Hamas propaganda.  There have been anti-Semitic boycotts, institutional divestment of Israeli investments, sanctions resolutions, and attempts to shut down pro-Israel speakers, sometimes with violence.

A lot of this, of course, is driven by Muslim student groups or pro-Palestinian organizations on campus.  There are, fortunately, campuses where Jew-hatred is met with official condemnation.  However, the disturbing factor is that at many colleges and universities, liberal faculty and administrators look the other way.  If it were KKK sponsored anti-African-American rhetoric or demonstrations, it would not be tolerated for an instant.  If it were allegations of coeds being raped on campus, there would be an immediate public outcry.  But because it is directed at Jews, left leaning educators are content to stand by and do little or nothing.

Hatred of the Jews has been around for centuries.  The question we might profitably ask is, why?  Why are Jews consistently singled out as objects of hatred? The Bible may offer us a clue.  I realize that merely by saying what I am about to say, some will  rear back in horror and accuse me of gross anti-Semitism myself.  But this is not the case.  I want to raise a question that ought to be considered if we want to find a solution.

In Deuteronomy 28 Moses has gathered the people of Israel on the facing mountain peaks of Ebal and Gerizim.  It is just before Israel was to enter the Promised Land, what is today Israel and Palestine, to conquer it.  Moses enacts a ceremony where symbolically half the people represent the blessings of God, if Israel will remain faithful and obedient to him.  And half represent God’s curse if the people forget God and do not keep his commandments.   The passage is too long to reproduce here.  The list of curses is vast and the language is strong because God has singled out Israel for special favor and a special purpose, and he wants to bless them.

Here are some of the relevant words of the curse: “You shall become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the people where the Lord shall drive you… All these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.  And they shall become a sign and a wonder on you and on all your descendants forever.” (Deuteronomy 28:37, 45-46) (Emphasis ours.)  Does the persistence of hatred by the world directed at the Jews find its explanation in this curse?  Is this the ultimate factor that lies beneath the Holocaust?  It is worth pondering.

Ultimately, the unrelenting animosity of much of the world toward the Jews is directed and fueled by Satan.  This malignant being is real.  When horrifying Evil appears in the world, as it does from time to time, the only adequate explanation is the supernatural nature of hell’s wrath.  At bottom, Satan’s fiery hatred is directed at God and all whom God appears favors.  The Bible says that the people of Israel were God’s chosen people.  If the Jews today do not fully and joyfully serve their true God as once they did, it means they have slipped out from under the protection of God.  Hence the curse.  It is worth contemplating.  If we want to bring the hatred of Jews to an end in our time, it is the place to start.

Dr. Rick Perrin is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and Chairman of the Board of World Reformed Fellowship..  He writes a weekly blog called ReTHINK which may be accessed at www.rethinkingnews.wordpress.com. He may be contacted directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.