“Until October 7, I thought that antisemitism was mostly a fringe issue,” says Sylvan Adams. “On October 8, when there were anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations in Sydney, Manhattan, Toronto, and London, I came to the realization that this is a contemporary problem.” In the two and a half years since October 7, it has only accelerated.”
Speaking with the Jerusalem Post from Krakow, after the March of the Living, Adams, President of the World Jewish Congress – Israel Region, reflected on the current state of antisemitism in the world against the backdrop of his participation in the March, where he led the antisemitism delegation, lit a torch with survivors of antisemitic attacks, and addressed a delegation of more than 130 senior law enforcement leaders from around the world.
Adams says that the three main foreign ‘actors’ who are funding and promoting antisemitism are Iran and its proxies, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is supported principally by the Emirate of Qatar and the Emir himself, and the Chinese, who, through their ownership and manipulation of TikTok, which he termed “the most virulently antisemitic platform of all of the social media platforms.” What drives this antisemitism, he notes, “is not one ideology, but a convergence. Islamist extremists are the ideological engine. The radical left is providing language and legitimacy, and the far right contributes its conspiracies and xenophobic traditions.”
The antisemitism engendered by these three groups, adds Adams, is generated in mosques, the educational system, and social media throughout the world.
Most people in the world, he asserts, do not hold antisemitic beliefs, but they are silent and afraid to speak out against these forces. He warns that unless there is a pushback against the foreign actors who are promoting antisemitism, they will continue their hostile activities, undermine the Jews and, ultimately, Western society. “It may start with the Jews,” Adams points out, “but it never finishes with the Jews.”
Adams was honored with lighting the first torch at the ceremony dedicated to combatting the unprecedented global rise in antisemitism, together with recent victims of terror, including Eva Wietzen, survivor of the Hanukkah massacre at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, in which her husband Tibor Wietzen and her close friend Edith Brutman were killed; Yoni Finley, injured in a Yom Kippur synagogue attack in Manchester, UK; Catherine Szkop and Abbie Talmoud, Embassy of Israel staff in Washington and survivors of the DC shooting in which their colleagues Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky were murdered; and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, US State Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism. The ceremony was attended by some eight thousand people, with tens of thousands watching via livestream in Israel and around the world.
Adams briefed members of an international law enforcement delegation, which included representatives from the FBI, CIA, European Police units, and INTERPOL, about the current state of antisemitism, noting that “when synagogues need constant protection, when schools become targets, when people are told to hide who they are in public, something much larger is going wrong. If we allow antisemitism to rise again, unchecked, if we allow intimidation to become normalized and violence to become thinkable, then we are not just dishonoring history. If we fail, we risk creating the next generation of survivors. Because what began here did not begin with gas chambers. It began with words, with permission, and with silence.”
“The police officers are very interested in understanding this phenomenon, which is happening in their own streets,” says Adams, “and they clearly understood the need to protect the rights of citizens, including Jewish citizens. I think they left here with a renewed determination to protect their Jewish civilians.” Law enforcement officials in attendance responded with overwhelmingly positive feedback to his remarks.
Despite the current wave of antisemitism and the solemnity of the March of the Living, Adams remains optimistic and is encouraged by what he sees. “The most beautiful part about this is they call it the March of the Living. Yes, we came here to commemorate and to mourn our dead, but we also came with students who carry the torch for the Jewish people, and we have a future. We need to combat these nefarious forces that are seeking to undermine us, but I am confident in our ability to do so if we diagnose the problem properly. I believe in our ability to push back, and led by the state of Israel, we’ve shown how adept we are at confronting military enemies. The war against antisemitism is another war, and it is the Eighth Front, after the seven physical fronts that Israel has confronted. We need to push back and use all our tools. We are the Start-Up Nation. We can figure this out.”