The headlines change daily, but the lesson does not: when hatred mutates a society, a malignant cancer grows—and it is often terminal.

The lesson is an uncomfortable one: Jews feel least safe not only where violence occurs, but where intimidation is allowed to perform as virtue and linger unchallenged—by authorities and by the “innocent” passers-by who learn to look away. Security is not only about guards and cameras; it is also about what a society permits to be normalized. When hatred becomes visible everywhere, it no longer needs to be violent to do its work.

I can only speak from personal experience—specifically in Canada, Mexico, Israel, and Germany, and in the cities of Toronto, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, and Nuremberg. What struck me most was not where antisemitism existed, but where it insisted on making itself visible.

In Toronto, hostility announces itself relentlessly. It clings to bus shelters and light poles, spreads across garbage bins and storefronts, and repeats itself until it becomes part of the city’s visual grammar. You do not need to search for it; it finds you while parking your car, waiting for a streetcar, or crossing an intersection.

This is antisemitism as performance—public, repetitive, and coercive. Its power lies less in immediate violence than in saturation. It hides behind the language of virtue and “free speech,” even when that speech is clearly designed to intimidate rather than persuade. Public servants turn a blind eye, citing platitudes about expression while ignoring the underlying rot. The message is unmistakable: Jews are to be scrutinized, judged, and symbolically prosecuted in shared civic space. As altruistic as it may appear, #FreePalestine functions as a coded message—calling for the erasure of Israel and, more ominously, Jews themselves.........

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