The Antisemitism Epidemic: A Christian Response

On June 1, 2025, 45-year-old Mohammed Sabry Soliman yelled “Free Palestine!” and tossed Molotov cocktails at Jewish participants at an event meant to draw attention to the plight of Israeli hostages. The cocktails burned eight of the participants, with one 82-year-old victim eventually dying. Two months later, on August 27th, a 70-year-old Jewish woman shopping at an Ottawa Kosher grocery store was stabbed in what police called a “hate-motivated crime.”

These two events, unfortunately, are just some of the hate crimes against Jews in Canada and the United States this year. Around 70% of religious hate crimes in America and Canada are directed against Jews. Furthermore, for both Canada and the U.S., the number of antisemitic incidents is at a record high.¹ Of course, this trend is not limited to the United States or Canada.

Students, staff, and professors at America’s elite universities are also participating in this trend (for antisemitic incidents on campuses from just this past week, see here). I never thought I would see the day when progressive academics who complain about micro-aggressions, suggest trigger warnings, and are sensitive to even minor acts of perceived racism, Islamophobia, or gender prejudice would openly glory in and stream their antisemitic treatment of Jews.

Yes, I know that some of them try to claim that it is really about Israeli politics, but an examination of the evidence betrays that point. Attacks against synagogues, Jewish businesses, or Jewish students and professors are not valid protests against Israel’s war strategy. We are seeing racist incidents against Jewish students that would never be tolerated toward any other minority (see, for example, the HHS notice of Civil Rights violation reports for Columbia, Harvard, and UCLA). Furthermore, we are seeing progressive academics support them, and administrators stand by and do nothing. It is morally revolting. Although the sixty universities investigated included only one barely Christian university, Pacific Lutheran University, we should be equipping our students with some basic theological thinking and history on this issue. This essay seeks to provide some.

The Theological Problem

At the core of the problem is an inability to treat others as image bearers of God. Unfortunately, the failure of Americans to recognize fellow human beings as image bearers is not new in American history, as the Civil Rights movement demonstrated. One of the problems with the secularization of North America, however, is that it means fewer people believe that others are made in God’s image. This belief is not something imparted through general revelation. It has only emerged in Judeo-Christian cultures, where God’s biblical declaration that humans are made in God’s image is taken seriously and the social implications of that view are applied both to law and culture, ensuring equal protection for human dignity. That is why the movement to educate all men and women, to abolish slavery, and to respect individual human rights only emerged from these cultures. It is this revealed belief that humanizes the other in our eyes. That being said, even Christians who believe that all are made in God’s image have struggled to apply this teaching to Jews throughout their history.

The Theological Roots of Christian Antisemitism

I recall when the renowned Catholic theologian Hans Küng visited Rice University to teach a course during my undergraduate years. He had us read a book called Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Antisemitism by Rosemary Radford Ruether. Although I had read Ivanhoe, seen Fiddler on the Roof, and had some knowledge of Jewish expulsions from European countries, I was unaware of the historical realities I encountered in this book. That Christians justified their cruel treatment of Jews using theological reasons had not been something of which I was previously aware.

One set of arguments involved a mistake we see today of conflating the actions of Jewish leaders and Jews as a whole. If you read the sermons by the disciples in Acts, one central argument toward fellow Jews and Jewish leaders involved pointing out how the Jewish leaders had crucified Jesus. In Acts 5:30, Peter and the other apostles point out to their audience of Jewish leaders, “The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.” The response was what you would expect: “When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death” (v. 33).

Similarly, Stephen’s speech to the Jewish leaders did not exactly end on a winsome note,

 You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him— you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it. (Acts 7:51-53)

Now, I do not recommend these two approaches unless led by the Spirit, but I think we can understand how this early blame of Jewish religious leaders became transferred into blaming the Jews as a whole race (something that podcasters such as Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are doing today).

Furthermore, plenty of later heroes of the Protestant faith carried on this problematic tradition of blaming the whole Jewish people for problems. For example, Martin Luther spent some of his last days lashing out against the Jews with articles such as “The Jews and Their Lies,” an example that certainly did not help the status of Jews in Germany for the next 500 years.

As home of the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, North America has historically been more welcoming of Jews and less riddled with European forms of violent antisemitism.² Nonetheless, antisemitism still infected North American higher education throughout its history. For instance, many Mainline Protestant Ivy League universities added “character” requirements to their admissions standards in the early 1900s to try to keep Jewish students to a minimum.³

Today, as already mentioned, antisemitic hate crimes are growing, as are general forms of antisemitism. Here is one area where the growth of Christianity in the Global South may also produce increasing antisemitism without thorough Christian discipleship. Blacks and Hispanics demonstrate greater antisemitism than whites.⁴ In addition, Christian immigrants from Eastern Orthodox countries have higher rates of antisemitism as well (having lived in Russia, I have also understood how deeply this infection is part of the culture in those countries).⁵ Christian universities must make sure their discipleship regarding the image of God extends to this area.

Of course, today antisemitism problems go far beyond Christianity.

Islamist Antisemitism

A fellow church member talked with me recently about the wonderful hospitality they received in Muslim countries in Southeast Asia. I do not doubt it. My family and I have been the beneficiaries of wonderful Muslim hospitality as well. The problem is that this hospitality does not extend either to promoting religious liberty in Muslim countries for all religions or, for many Muslims, recognizing the human dignity of Jews. One recent female Islamic leader even declared we should not humanize Jews since they are oppressors.

Unsurprisingly, Islamic antisemitism is incredibly high. One recent 2025 study in Germany found “35 per cent of Muslims strongly agreed with classical antisemitic statements.”⁶ Most concerning about the study was this line in the conclusion, “While antisemitism among Christian immigrants weakened with the length of stay in Germany, we found that the years since migration do not significantly reduce antisemitism among Muslim immigrants.”⁷ Thus, it is not uncommon to find a desire to exterminate all Jews among some professional Muslims throughout Europe (see, for example, here and here).

The hyper-focus on Jews is not balanced in any way with other tragedies among Muslim people, such as starvation in Sudan, disorder in Somalia, or the genocide of the Ughyers in China. Granted, I understand the response of one Muslim family friend of ours when I brought up this last point: “You know you cannot do anything about China’s actions.” Still, the pervasive hatred among certain Islamicists for Jews is something most Americans do not understand. Now, we must fight it whenever we can. Christian universities should be at the forefront of protecting the human dignity of all.

A Simple Expectation for Christian Universities with Pluralistic Admissions Policies

In light of the rise of antisemitism, as well as other violence and discrimination on college campuses, I am coming to the conviction that we need to make clear a simple moral expectation for any student, undergraduate or graduate, who applies to Christian universities, no matter where in the world. It is what I call the image of God statement. I think every student should be acquainted with this statement throughout their time at a Christian university:

Please note that at a university, you will be exposed to academic, political, and religious conversations and people seeking to convince you of their academic, political, and/or religious viewpoint. That is part of academic life at a healthy academic community, especially a Christian university. In the midst of these conversations and our life together, you will be expected to treat all students—atheists, agnostics, Christians, Hindus, Jewis, Muslims, and any other religious group or individual with the respect and humanity they deserve as image bearers of God (or if you do not believe humans are made in God’s image—as humans with inherent and equal human dignity).

If a student disagrees with or acts contrary to this statement, they do not belong on our campuses. It is a simple thing we could do to protect against the virus of antisemitism sweeping the world.

1. For this essay, I will simply use the U.S. State Department definition of Anti-semitism: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities” (para. 1).  U.S. Department of State. (2010, June 8). Defining anti-Semitism. https://www.state.gov/defining-antisemitism/
2. Neil J. Kressel and Samuel W Kressel, “Trends in the Psychological Study of Contemporary Antisemitism: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Evidence.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 38, no. 2 (2016): 111–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2016.1164704.
3. Julie Reuben, The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (University of Chicago Press, 1996).
4. Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden. “Antisemitic Attitudes Across the Ideological Spectrum.” Political Research Quarterly 76, no. 2 (2023): 697–711. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221111081.
5. See the cited studies in the literature review to Christian S Czymara, Marcus Eisentraut, Pascal Kolkwitz-Anstötz, Eldad Davidov, Peter Schmidt, Antisemitism among Muslims in Germany, European Sociological Review, Volume 41, Issue 4, August 2025, Pages 607–625, https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcaf017
6. Czymara et al., “Antisemitism among Muslims in Germany.”
7. Czymara et al., “Antisemitism among Muslims in Germany,” 621.