Le Point · 2025
Antisemitism: the “Crystal Summer” lived by Jews
Translated from the French. Original: op-ed, Le Point (Débats), August 28, 2025 · French version · Read the original on lepoint.fr ↗
Le PointOP-ED. The past months have seen a flood of anti-Jewish hatred around the world, under the pretext of anti-Zionism. When will the awakening come?
By Lionel Abbo and David Benaym*
To the question “And how was your holiday?”, the answer is: “antisemitic”.
This blaze, this forest fire of anti-Jewish violence, this anti-Zionist heatwave began as early as spring. On May 30, in Deauville, Rabbi Elie Lemmel was physically assaulted by three individuals in the street. On May 31, the façade of the Shoah Memorial was sprayed with green paint. On June 6, Rabbi Lemmel was hit again, this time in Neuilly. The link with the dramatic situation in Gaza is obvious. When the media and politicians hammer home the genocide narrative, Jews become targets.
In Livry-Gargan, Ruby Sitruck, 65, was beaten and insulted in the street. His Star of David was stolen from him. The antisemitic motive was not retained by the authorities. Faced with the surge of violence, the justice system sends Jews the feeling that, with Gaza, antisemitism has mitigating circumstances. In early July, in Vigo, Spain, Israeli tourists were thrown out of a restaurant amid jeers and pro-Hezbollah slogans: “At your service, Nasrallah!” the demonstrators chanted, in reference to the head of the terrorist organisation, glorified as a resistance fighter. Mitigating circumstances.
In Italy, in Crete, in Greece, in Spain, in the Netherlands, the phenomenon repeats itself. Without the slightest coordination, Israeli tourists are followed, threatened, thrown out, roughed up. Nobody asks them their political opinion. Whether they support Netanyahu or belong, like hundreds of thousands of their compatriots, to the strikers and demonstrators opposing the war. What they think does not matter. They are Israelis and Jews, therefore guilty. Mitigating circumstances.
A punch in the stomach
Do these incidents awaken consciences? No. A month later, in the Pyrénées-Orientales, the manager of a leisure centre barred one hundred and fifty Israeli children from entering for “personal convictions”. Mitigating circumstances. In Vienna, an Uber driver verbally and physically attacked his passengers, a Jewish family. Mitigating circumstances.
In dozens of seaside towns, shop windows are adorned with nauseating warning messages: “No Zionists allowed”. Zionists not permitted. These photos of shops, circulating on X and Instagram, are a punch in the stomach for every Jew in the world. They send them back to an era and methods thought to be gone. Those of 1940, when shops displayed at their entrance: “No Jews or dogs allowed”. On dating apps such as Grindr, the mention “no Zionist” is allowed among the selection criteria so that users can rule out certain profiles.
In Belgium, at the Francofolies, Amir, a French-Israeli artist who is nonetheless a strong advocate of dialogue and peace, was boycotted. Dozens of other singers refused to perform on the same stage. In Toronto, a documentary about October 7 was turned down by a festival director over copyright issues. Must we really ask barbarians who filmed their rapes, their murders, their abductions for the right to use the videos they shot? Under pressure, the TIFF director eventually backtracked. Pressure is something Rock en Seine does not care about. The Irish group Kneecap stayed on the bill despite its glorification of terrorism. On July 29, at a motorway service area near Milan, a father and his 6-year-old son were set upon by a veritable pack of motorists, who blocked him as he came out of the toilets, shouting Free Palestine. This father and his son are not Israeli. They are French.
A turning point came in Valencia, Spain, when 44 French Jewish children were removed from a Vueling flight. The counsellor accompanying them was violently handcuffed by the Guardia Civil as she left the plane. This event marks a turning point. For the first time, Jewish families saw their children become the victims of the nauseating atmosphere that reigns everywhere. In every holiday camp, instructions were given: no kippah, no songs in Hebrew. Young Jews were asked to keep a low profile in stations and airports. On July 25, in response to the heated controversy sparked by the incident, the Spanish Transport Minister, Óscar Puente, called these teenagers, who are in fact French, “Israeli brats” in a tweet.
To travel without being attacked, perhaps the train was the better choice. On August 5, on a Buenos Aires to Madrid flight, the words “Free Palestine” were added in marker pen on the foil of the kosher meals served to Jewish passengers. On August 6, the offices of the Israeli airline EL AL were vandalised in the middle of Paris. “Genocide Airlines” was tagged on the front door. On August 11, a “Free Palestine” message was sent by an air traffic controller to the pilots of an EL AL flight.
Alibi
Usually, in summer, social networks bloom with magnificent landscapes. Strange to come across such pictures amid testimonies of fear and anger and petitions of indignation, amplified by Emmanuel Macron’s announcement on X: “True to its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the State of Palestine.” Unlike his previous statements, no preconditions or prerequisites. Translation: Hamas has won.
Like a boomerang, the very next day the terrorist organisation recalled the nature of its DNA by publishing a video in which the hostage Evyatar David, his body skeletal and his face emaciated after more than 600 days of captivity, digs his own grave. Here again, the images went around the web. Jews all over the world then hoped that public opinion would open its eyes. That the same media and journalists who speak of genocide and famine would condemn the horror with the same vehemence. In vain. No front page in Libé, no front page in the New York Times. Only Le Monde would put the hostage’s photograph on its front page.
On August 10, in Montreal, a man was punched repeatedly in front of his children. The assault was filmed by a witness, from a distance. Its violence is horrifying. This summer, the most viral videos are not the funniest ones. On August 14, in Épinay-sur-Seine, the olive tree commemorating Ilan Halimi, tortured and murdered in 2006 because he was a Jew, was cut down with a chainsaw. This list is unfortunately not exhaustive. It grows longer every day. It does not mention the hundreds of thousands of hateful comments circulating on social networks. The LFI MPs who use their X accounts only to attack Israel. Almost all of their posts deal with this single obsession.
Hatred attracts death. In Washington, a deadly shooting targeted the Jewish museum. The attacker, Elias Rodriguez, shouted: “I did it for Gaza.” Two dead. All over the world, Jews and Israelis are being attacked. From Rhodes to New York, from Sydney to Casablanca, no continent is spared. Under cover of anti-Zionism, antisemites hold every Jew responsible for the war in Gaza. As if Jews did not also mourn the suffering of Palestinian children and civilians. As if every innocent death did not wound them too. The density and violence of the attacks and of the words of hatred show, through horror, how much this conflict taking place thousands of kilometres away is only a pretext. An excuse. An alibi. This Crystal Summer takes us back to the night of the same name. The time when shop windows were vandalised, passers-by insulted, synagogues set on fire. Images from another century, in black and white, which unfortunately took on colour in July.
Erasure
In the face of these despicable acts, the silence of the authorities, artists, influencers and politicians is deafening. So few messages of solidarity, of condemnation, of support. Almost nothing.
The Jews of France are returning to Paris, Nice, Marseille or Strasbourg. For two years now, many of them have changed their habits, become more discreet, lived in a closed circle, left the suburbs, removed the mezuzahs from their doors, stopped wearing a kippah when leaving the synagogue, changed their names on Uber or Deliveroo, stopped talking about Israel in public.
This summer, some Jews switched off their news feeds so as not to suffer the violence of disinformation any longer. Others took their children out of state schools to enrol them in a Jewish school. Others put their flat up for sale. Some even spent hours debating with ChatGPT about which solution to choose. Others unfollowed the accounts of twenty-year friends after seeing their posts on social networks. They act, hoping for a gesture from their country, a gesture that does not come.
On the contrary, faced with accusations of inaction against antisemitism, the government hides behind talking points. The law is there to protect. Yet the acts go unpunished.
The Jews are not leaving France. It is France that, through its silence, is erasing them.
* Lionel Abbo is an author and communications professional. David Benaym is a journalist and correspondent in Israel.