By Claudio Lottenberg

There are moments when hatred stops being a problem of one community and becomes a warning sign for society as a whole. Antisemitism is one of those moments. Its persistence across centuries — and its remarkable ability to reinvent itself in different political, cultural, and moral vocabularies — makes it more than prejudice against Jews. It makes it a measure of how far a society is willing to drift from truth, restraint, and moral clarity. When antisemitism rises, something deeper is already breaking down: the ability to see fellow human beings as human, rather than as symbols onto which fear, frustration, and rage can be projected.

What makes antisemitism so enduring is precisely its adaptability. In one era, Jews were condemned in the name of religion; in another, in the name of race, nation, class, or ideology. Today, the same impulse often reappears clothed in the language of justice, human rights, or political virtue. The vocabulary changes. The underlying mechanism does not. Jews are once again turned into a uniquely convenient target, blamed not only for real or imagined wrongs, but for the anxieties of the age itself. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks captured this with great precision when he argued that antisemitism is never only about Jews. It is about the failures of the societies that produce it — their need to simplify complexity, to externalize guilt, and to transform one people into a permanent moral defendant.

Since October 7, that pattern has become impossible to ignore. Across the world, antisemitic incidents have surged, and what was once dismissed as marginal has reentered public life with disturbing confidence. Brazil has not been immune. The rise in reported cases, especially online, shows that this hatred is no longer confined to the fringes. Social media has accelerated the spread by rewarding outrage, simplification, and tribalism. In this environment, antisemitism finds expression at different ideological poles: on the far right, through revived conspiratorial and racial myths; on parts of the far left, through the total demonization of Israel and the refusal to grant Jews the legitimacy routinely extended to other vulnerable peoples. The lesson is clear: antisemitism does not belong to a single political camp. It flourishes wherever fanaticism replaces complexity and where moral absolutism erases human nuance.

This is why the fight against antisemitism must never be treated as a narrow Jewish concern. It is a broader civilizational struggle. The memory of the Shoah requires more than commemoration; it requires vigilance. The real question before us is no longer whether antisemitism exists. That is beyond dispute. The question is whether democratic societies still have the seriousness to confront it before words once again prepare the ground for exclusion, intimidation, and violence. To stand against antisemitism is to defend Jews, certainly. But it is also to defend truth against distortion, pluralism against fanaticism, and democracy against moral corrosion. In the end, every society reveals itself by the hatreds it tolerates — and by the lines it refuses to let hatred cross.

Claudio Lottenberg is the World Jewish Congress Commissioner for Combating Antisemitism and president of CONIB, the Brazilian Jewish Confederation.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)