The summary of a 2004 poll by the "
Pew Global Attitudes Project" noted, "Despite concerns about rising antisemitism in Europe, there are no indications that anti-Jewish sentiment has increased over the past decade. Favorable ratings of Jews are actually higher now in France, Germany and Russia than they were in 1991. Nonetheless, Jews are better liked in the U.S. than in Germany and Russia." as a Jewish octopus
encircling the globe. The Vienna-based
European Union Monitoring Centre (EUMC), for 2002 and 2003, identified France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and the Netherlands as EU member countries with notable increases in incidents. Many of these incidents can be linked to immigrant communities in these countries and result from heightened tensions in the Middle East. As these nations keep reliable and comprehensive statistics on antisemitic acts, and are engaged in combating antisemitism, their data was readily available to the EUMC. In Eastern Europe, antisemitism remained a serious concern
in Russia and
Belarus, and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, with most incidents carried out by ultra-nationalist and other far-right elements.
Denmark Antisemitism in Denmark has not been as widespread as in other countries. Initially Jews were banned as in other countries in Europe, but beginning in the 17th century, Jews were allowed to live in Denmark freely, unlike in other European countries where they were forced to live in ghettos. In 1819 a series of anti-Jewish riots in Germany spread to several neighboring countries including Denmark, resulting in mob attacks on Jews in Copenhagen and many provincial towns. These riots were known as
Hep! Hep! Riots, from the derogatory rallying cry against the Jews in Germany. Riots lasted for five months during which time shop windows were smashed, stores looted, homes attacked, and Jews physically abused. However, during World War II, Denmark was very uncooperative with the Nazi occupation on Jewish matters. Danish officials repeatedly insisted to the German occupation authorities that there was no "Jewish problem" in Denmark. As a result, even ideologically committed Nazis such as Reich Commissioner
Werner Best followed a strategy of avoiding and deferring discussion of Denmark's Jews. When Denmark's German occupiers began planning the deportation of the 8,000 or so Jews in Denmark to
Nazi concentration camps, many Danes and Swedes took part in a collective effort to evacuate the roughly 8,000 Jews of Denmark by sea to nearby Sweden (see also
Rescue of the Danish Jews).
Estonia In March 1996 the Russian-language newspaper
Estoniya reported that antisemitic literature was being distributed by local Russian-speaking organizations; the literature was to be found mainly at the
Narva centre of the Union of Russian Citizens in Estonia. The
Estoniya reporter said he had asked Yuri Mishin, the chairman of the Union, whether such literature reflected the views of his organization; Mishin had replied that Estonia was a free country and people could read whatever they wished. In April 1996 Estonian-language leaflets were found in Tallinn. The leaflets contained an illustration of a monster from a children's book to which the authors of the leaflets had added anti-Jewish slogans. The leaflets were signed by the
Estonian National Working Party-New Estonian Legion. Also in April, German-language leaflets with anti-Jewish overtones calling for the deaths of top officials of
Tartu University were found on the walls of student dormitories at the university. In September the Jewish cemetery in Tallinn was vandalized; fourteen gravestones were damaged.
France Antisemitism was particularly virulent in
Vichy France during the
Second World War. The Vichy government openly collaborated with the Nazi occupiers to identify Jews for deportation and transportation to the death camps. Today, despite a steady trend of decreasing antisemitism among the indigenous population, acts of antisemitism are a serious cause for concern, as is tension between the Jewish and Muslim populations of France, both the largest in Europe. However, according to a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 71% of French Muslims had positive views of Jews, the highest percentage in the world. According to the National Advisory Committee on Human Rights, antisemitic acts account for a majority— 72% in all in 2003— of racist acts in France. In July 2005 the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that 82% of French people questioned had favorable attitudes towards Jews, the second highest percentage of the countries questioned. The Netherlands was highest at 85%.
Holocaust denial and antisemitic speech are prohibited under the 1990
Gayssot Act. Over the last several years,
anti-Jewish violence, property destruction, and racist language has been wildly increasing and French-Jews are worried more every month that it will spiral even higher. France is home to Europe's largest population of
Muslims — about 6 million – as well as the continent's largest community of Jews, about 600,000. Jewish leaders perceive an intensifying antisemitism in France, mainly among Muslims of
Arab or
African heritage, but also growing among
Caribbean islanders from former colonies.
Ilan Halimi (1982 – February 13, 2006) was a young French Jew (of
Moroccan parentage) kidnapped on January 21, 2006, by a gang of Muslim
immigrants called the "
Barbarians" and subsequently
tortured
to death over a period of three weeks. The murder, among whose motives authorities include antisemitism, incited a public outcry in a France already marked by intense public controversy about the role of children of immigrants in its society. With the start of the
Second Intifada in Israel, antisemitic incidents increased in France. In 2002, the
Commission nationale consultative des droits de l'homme (Human Rights Commission) reported six times more antisemitic incidents than in 2001 (193 incidents in 2002). The commission's statistics showed that antisemitic acts constituted 62% of all racist acts in the country (compared to 45% in 2001 and 80% in 2000). The report documented 313 violent acts against people or property, including 38 injuries and the murder of someone with
Maghrebin origins by
far right skinheads.
Germany , May/June 1944. To be sent to the right meant slave labor; to the left, the
gas chambers. This image shows the arrival of Hungarian Jews from
Carpatho-Ruthenia, many of them from the
Berehov ghetto. It was taken by Ernst Hofmann or Bernhard Walter of the SS. Courtesy of
Yad Vashem. From the early Middle Ages to the 18th century, the Jews in Germany were subject to many persecutions as well as brief times of tolerance. Though the 19th century began with a series of riots and pogroms against the Jews,
emancipation followed in 1848, so that, by the early 20th century, the Jews of Germany were the most integrated in Europe. The situation changed in the early 1930s with the rise of the
Nazis and their explicitly antisemitic program.
Hate speech which referred to Jewish citizens as "dirty Jews" became common in antisemitic pamphlets and newspapers such as the
Völkischer Beobachter and
Der Stürmer. Additionally, blame was laid on German Jews for having caused Germany's defeat in
World War I (see
Dolchstosslegende). Anti-Jewish propaganda expanded rapidly. Nazi cartoons depicting "dirty Jews" frequently portrayed a dirty, physically unattractive and badly dressed "talmudic" Jew in traditional religious garments similar to those worn by
Hasidic Jews. Articles attacking Jewish Germans, while concentrating on commercial and political activities of prominent Jewish individuals, also frequently attacked them based on religious dogmas, such as
blood libel. The Nazi antisemitic program quickly expanded beyond mere speech. Starting in 1933, repressive laws were passed against Jews, culminating in the
Nuremberg Laws which removed most of the rights of citizenship from Jews, using a racial definition based on descent, rather than any religious definition of who was a Jew. Sporadic violence against the Jews became widespread with the
Kristallnacht riots, which targeted Jewish homes, businesses and places of worship, killing hundreds across Germany and Austria. The antisemitic agenda culminated in the
genocide of the Jews of Europe, known as the
Holocaust.
Hungary In June 1944, Hungarian police deported nearly 440,000 Jews in more than 145 trains, mostly to Auschwitz. Ultimately, over 400,000 Jews in Hungary were killed during the Holocaust. Although Jews were on both sides of the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956, there was a perceptible antisemitic backlash against Jewish members of the former government led by
Mátyás Rákosi. Today, hatred towards Judaism and Israel can be observed from many prominent Hungarian politicians. The most famous example is the
MIÉP party and its chairman,
István Csurka. Antisemitism in
Hungary was manifested mainly in far right publications and demonstrations.
MIÉP supporters continued their tradition of shouting antisemitic slogans and tearing the
US flag to shreds at their annual rallies in
Budapest in March 2003 and 2004, commemorating the
1848–49 revolution. Further, during the anniversary demonstrations of both right and left marking the 1956 uprising, antisemitic and anti-Israel slogans were heard from the right, such as accusing Israel of war crimes. The center-right traditionally keeps its distance from the right-wing demonstration, which was led by Csurka.
Norway Jews were prohibited from living or entering Norway by paragraph 2 (known as the
Jewish Paragraph in Norway) of the 1814
Constitution, which originally read,
"The evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those inhabitants, who confess thereto, are bound to raise their children to the same. Jesuits and monkish orders are not permitted. Jews are still prohibited from entry to the Realm." In 1851 the last sentence was struck out. Monks were permitted in 1897; Jesuits not before 1956. In November 2024, more than 5,000 people protested in Vilnius against the Social Democrats forming a coalition with the Nemunas Dawn party, whose leader
Remigijus Žemaitaitis was on trial for antisemitic statements. In December 2025,
Remigijus Žemaitaitis, leader of the
Dawn of Nemunas party (a junior partner in the governing coalition), was convicted by the Vilnius Regional Court of inciting hatred against Jews and grossly minimizing the Holocaust in 2023 social media posts, receiving a €5,000 fine. In January 2026, the Lithuanian government approved an action plan to combat antisemitism, xenophobia, and incitement to discord, with measures for prevention, response to hate speech and crimes, equality promotion, and support for Jewish life.
Poland In 1264, Duke
Boleslaus the Pious from
Greater Poland legislated a
Statute of Kalisz, a charter for Jewish residence and protection, which encouraged money-lending, hoping that Jewish settlement would contribute to the development of the Polish economy. By the 16th century, Poland had become the center of European Jewry and the most tolerant of European countries regarding faith, though occasionally it witnessed violent antisemitic incidents. At the onset of the 17th century, tolerance began to give way to increased antisemitism. Elected to the Polish throne King
Sigismund III of the Swedish
House of Vasa, a supporter of the
Counter-Reformation, began to undermine the principles of the
Warsaw Confederation and the religious tolerance in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, revoking and limiting privileges of all non-Catholic faiths. In 1628 he banned publication of
Hebrew books, including the
Talmud. 20th century historian
Simon Dubnow detailed: In the 1650s the Swedish invasion of the Commonwealth (
The Deluge) and the
Chmielnicki uprising of the
Cossacks resulted in depopulation of the Commonwealth, as over 30% of the ~10 million population perished or emigrated. In the related 1648–55 pogroms led by the Ukrainian uprising against Polish nobility (
szlachta), during which approximately 100,000 Jews were slaughtered, Polish and
Ruthenian peasants often participated in killing Jews. The besieged szlachta, who were also decimated in the territories where the uprising happened, typically abandoned the loyal peasantry, townsfolk, and the Jews renting their land, in violation of "rental" contracts. In the aftermath of the Deluge and Chmielnicki Uprising, many Jews fled to the less turbulent
Netherlands, which had granted the Jews a protective charter in 1619. From then until the
Nazi deportations in 1942, the Netherlands remained a tolerant haven for Jews in Europe, exceeding the tolerance extant in all other European countries, and becoming one of the few Jewish havens until the 19th century social and political reforms throughout much of Europe. Many Jews fled to England, open to Jews since the mid-17th century, where Jews were not typically persecuted. Throughout the 16th to 18th centuries, many of the szlachta mistreated peasantry, townsfolk and Jews. Threat of mob violence was a spectre over the Jewish communities in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth at the time. On one occasion in 1696, a mob threatened to massacre the Jewish community of Posin,
Vitebsk. The mob accused the Jews of murdering a Pole. At the last moment, a peasant woman emerged with the victim's clothes and confessed to the murder. One notable example of riots against Polish Jews is 1716, during which many Jews lost their lives. On the other hand, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was a relative haven for Jews when compared to the
partitions of Poland and the PLC's destruction in 1795 (see
Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, below). Anti-Jewish sentiments continued to be present in Poland, even after the country regained its independence. One notable manifestation of these attitudes includes
numerus clausus rules imposed, by almost all Polish universities in 1937. While there are many examples of Polish support and help for the Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, there are numerous examples of antisemitic incidents, and the Jewish population was certain of the indifference towards their fate from the Christian Poles. The Polish Institute for National Memory identified 24
pogroms against Jews during World War II, the most notable occurring at the
massacre in Jedwabne in 1941. After World War II, remaining anti-Jewish sentiments were used by the Communist party or individual politicians to achieve political goals, which peaked in the
March 1968 events. These sentiments started to diminish only with the collapse of the
communist rule in 1989, which resulted in a re-examination of events between Jewish and Christian Poles, with a number of incidents, like the massacre at Jedwabne, being discussed openly. Violent antisemitism in the 21st century is marginal compared to elsewhere, but there are few Jews remaining in Poland. Still, according to 2005 research by
B'nai Briths
Anti-Defamation League, Poland remains among the European countries (with others being Italy, Spain and Germany) with the largest percentages of people holding antisemitic views.
Spain The first major persecution of Jews in Spain occurred on December 30, 1066, when the Jews were expelled from
Granada and nearly 3,000 Jews were killed during the
Granada massacre when they did not leave. This was the first persecution of Jews by the Muslims on the Peninsula under Islamic rule. Jews have been permitted to immigrate to Sweden since the late 18th century, at first only to
Stockholm,
Gothenburg and
Norrköping, but this restriction was removed in 1854. In 1870 Jews received full citizenship and the first Jewish members of parliament (
riksdagen), Aron Philipson and Moritz Rubenson, were elected in 1873. However Swedish non-Protestants, most of which were Catholics and Jews, were still not allowed to teach the subject of Christianity in public schools or to be government ministers (
statsråd); these restrictions were removed in 1951.
Yiddish has legal status as one of the country's
official minority languages. There have, however, been a number of antisemitic incidents in recent years, and after Germany and
Austria, Sweden has the highest rate of antisemitic incidents in Europe. Though the
Netherlands reports a higher rate of antisemitism in some years. A government study in 2006 estimated that 15% of Swedes agree with the statement: "The Jews have too much influence in the world today". Five percent of the entire adult population, and 39% of the Muslim population, harbor strong and consistent antisemitic views. Former Prime Minister
Göran Persson described these results as "surprising and terrifying". However, the Rabbi of Stockholm's Orthodox Jewish community, Meir Horden claimed that "It's not true to say that the Swedes are anti-Semitic. Some of them are hostile to Israel because they support the weak side, which they perceive the Palestinians to be."
Russia and the Soviet Union The
Pale of Settlement was the Western region of
Imperial Russia to which Jews were restricted by the Tsarist Ukase of 1792. It consisted of the territories of former
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, annexed with the existing numerous Jewish population, and the
Crimea (which was later cut out from the Pale). During 1881–1884, 1903–1906 and 1914–1921, waves of antisemitic
pogroms swept Russian Jewish communities. At least some pogroms are believed to have been organized or supported by the Russian
Okhrana. Although there is no hard evidence for this, the Russian police and army generally displayed indifference to the pogroms, for instance during the three-day
First Kishinev pogrom of 1903. During this period the
May Laws policy was also put into effect, banning Jews from rural areas and towns, and placing strict quotas on the number of Jews allowed into higher education and many professions. The combination of the repressive legislation and pogroms propelled mass Jewish emigration, and by 1920 more than two million Russian Jews had emigrated, most to the United States while some made
aliya to the
Land of Israel. One of the most infamous antisemitic tractates was the Russian Okhrana literary
hoax,
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, created to blame the Jews for Russia's problems during the period of revolutionary activity. Even though many
Old Bolsheviks were ethnically Jewish, they sought to uproot Judaism and Zionism and established the
Yevsektsiya to achieve this goal. By the end of the 1940s the Communist leadership of the former USSR had liquidated almost all Jewish organizations, including Yevsektsiya. Stalin sought to segregate Russian Jews into "Soviet Zion", with the help of
Komzet and
OZET in 1928. The
Jewish Autonomous Oblast with the center in
Birobidzhan in the
Russian Far East attracted only limited settlement, and never achieved Stalin's goal of an internal exile for the Jewish people.
Stalin's antisemitic campaign of 1948–1953 against so-called "
rootless cosmopolitans," destruction of the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the fabrication of the "
Doctors' plot," the rise of "
Zionology" and subsequent activities of official organizations such as the
Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were officially carried out under the banner of "anti-Zionism," but the use of this term could not obscure the antisemitic content of these campaigns, and by the mid-1950s the state persecution of Soviet Jews emerged as a major human rights issue in the West and domestically. See also:
Jackson–Vanik amendment,
Refusenik,
Pamyat. and
Empress Elizabeth. In the early 21st century, antisemitic pronouncements, speeches and articles were common in Russia, and there were a large number of antisemitic neo-Nazi groups in the republics of the former Soviet Union, leading
Pravda to declare in 2002 that "antisemitism is booming in Russia." There also were bombs found attached to antisemitic signs, apparently aimed at Jews, and other violent incidents, including stabbings, have been recorded. Though the government of
Vladimir Putin takes an official stand against antisemitism, some political parties and groups are explicitly antisemitic, in spite of a Russian law (Art. 282) against fomenting racial, ethnic or religious hatred. In 2005, a group of 15
Duma members demanded that Judaism and Jewish organizations be banned from Russia. In June, 500 prominent Russians, including some 20 members of the nationalist
Rodina party, demanded that the state prosecutor investigate ancient Jewish texts as "anti-Russian" and ban Judaism—the investigation was actually launched, but halted amid international outcry.
Ukraine , Ukraine. Ukraine experienced brutal antisemitism during the WW2. Ukrainian
nationalists of
OUN (b) organized an assembly in
Nazi occupied Cracow in April 1940 and the assembly proclaimed: "The kikes in the USSR are the most faithful basement of the Bolshevic regime and the vanguard of the Moscow imperialism in Ukraine... The Organization of Ukrainian nationalists fights against the kikes as the basement of the Moscow Bolshevik regime with the understanding that Moscow is the main enemy". The Ukrainian nationalists proclaimed the independent Ukrainian state in the first days of Nazi occupation of Western Ukraine and the nationalist Yaroslav Stecko, the leader of the newly created
Ukrainian state proclaimed: "Moscow and the kikes are the most dangerous enemies of Ukraine. I think that the key enemy is Moscow that took Ukraine into slavery. Nevertheless, I estimate the hostile and pest will of the kikes who assisted Moscow to enslave Ukraine. Therefore, I hold my position to exterminate the kikes and consider the German methods of extermination of the kikes be advisable excluding the any possibility of assimilation". ==North America==