Antisemitism Has Taken Hold in the Democratic Party.

There has always been antisemitism on the fringes of both the Republican and the Democratic parties. It has remained limited to individuals or small groups of hateful individuals operating on the extreme fringe at the grassroots. It has not been systemic within the major parties or the government since the early twentieth century, when President Franklin Roosevelt led the last truly antisemitic administration in this nation.

Lately, however, antisemitism has become an integral part of the politics and policies of the rising radical left within the Democratic Party. Antisemitic tropes now issue regularly from Democrat members of Congress. Institutional antisemitism has empowered grassroots antisemitism in ways America has not experienced in almost 100 years.

The numbers reveal a rising tide that cannot be dismissed as coincidence or isolated extremism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the United States recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the highest total since tracking began in 1979 and a 5 percent increase from the prior year. The FBI reported 1,938 single-bias anti-Jewish hate crimes that same year, up 5.8 percent from 2023 and the highest figure since data collection started in 1991. These crimes represented nearly 70 percent of all religion-based hate crimes despite Jews comprising roughly 2 percent of the population. Physical assaults reached 178. In 2025 the ADL still documented 6,274 incidents, and three Jewish people were murdered in antisemitic attacks—the first such murders since 2019.

Various terrorist attacks on Jewish events and facilities underscore the danger. In 2025 a gunman killed two Jewish employees outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. That same year an Egyptian national attacked a “Run for Their Lives” gathering in Boulder, Colorado, with a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine,” killing one person and injuring more than a dozen. An arsonist hurled Molotov cocktails at the residence of Jewish Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro while his family slept inside. In March 2026 a man rammed a vehicle into Temple Israel synagogue and preschool in West Bloomfield, Michigan, then opened fire, injuring a security officer; the attacker drew inspiration from Hezbollah. In January 2026 another vehicle ramming targeted the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn, and arson struck Beth Israel Congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, damaging Torah scrolls. These incidents form part of a pattern of shootings, firebombing, stabbings, and vehicle attacks on synagogues, community centers, and public Jewish events.

All these incidents are the consequences of the rhetorical fuel provided by powerful Democrat leaders – including members of Congress. Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib of the Squad have invoked classic antisemitic tropes, including suggestions that Jewish money through AIPAC controls congressional policy and implications of dual loyalty. They opposed a House resolution condemning the global rise of antisemitism, claiming it would stifle criticism of Israel. Such statements from sitting Democrats do not remain confined to the fringe; they signal permission to the broader coalition.

Institutional tolerance has produced concrete grassroots consequences. In June 2026, Congressman Dan Goldman, a pro-Israel Democrat, stopped at Poetica Coffee in Brooklyn with his seven-year-old daughter to use the restroom and purchased a coffee. After the visit the shop owner posted on social media that staff would have turned Goldman away had they recognized him, issued a refund of $9.82, and declared they do not serve “genocide enablers.” The Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation into the incident.

Another revealing case involves Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee for the United States Senate in Maine. Platner won his primary despite having worn a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest for most of his adult life, and despite accusations of antisemitism tied to his characterizations of AIPAC influence. Senator Bernie Sanders endorsed him. Other prominent Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and additional members of the Squad, have continued to support or decline to repudiate his candidacy. Defending and supporting an individual with Nazi fascinations is a backhanded form of antisemitism.

Antisemitic actions on college campuses since October 2023 have revealed a toxic mix of student activism and faculty complicity that turned many universities into hostile environments for Jewish students.

At Columbia University, student organizers established “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” that featured building occupations, exclusionary tactics, and chants invoking the destruction of Israel alongside harassment of Jewish peers. At UCLA, protesters created what became known as a “Jew Exclusion Zone” on Royce Quad, physically barring Jewish and Israeli students from parts of campus unless they denounced Israel. Masked students displayed swastikas, graffitied “F**k Jews” and “Jews, the new Nazis,” chanted “Itbah El Yahud” (slaughter the Jews) and “death to Jews,” and violently attacked counterprotesters while ripping down hostage posters.

Faculty members amplified the problem. Professors participated in or publicly defended these encampments and protests, incorporated antisemitic framing into class content, and pressured administrators to tolerate or accommodate violations rather than enforce conduct codes. Congressional reports documented faculty ignoring protections for Jewish students and legitimizing harassment.

During a 2024 teach-in, Ibrahim Aoude, Professor at the University of Hawaii, stated that then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken acted “as a Jew, not as an American Secretary of State” and specifically “a Zionist Jew.” Sami Hermez, Assistant Professor and Director of the Liberal Arts Program at Northwestern University in Qatar, has shared or endorsed content referring to “Jews [as] disgusting liars.” He spreads conspiracy theories about Jews controlling Europe.

These developments are not random. The radical left’s dominance within significant segments of the Democratic Party has transformed what once existed only at the margins into tolerated or defended behavior. When elected officials traffic in ancient prejudices, when primary challenges punish pro-Israel Democrats, when candidates with Nazi tattoos and conspiracy rhetoric receive establishment backing, and when businesses feel empowered to deny service on the basis of support for Israel, antisemitism ceases to be fringe. It becomes a feature of the culture – at least the radical left-wing Democrat culture.

The attack on Jewish institutions and people today is reminiscent of the early 1930s in Germany. It was then top down hatred of Jewish DNA, their religious beliefs, their wealth and business dealings, their very presence. They were accused of international conspiracies. They were violently attack by politically motivated mobs – property destroyed and people murdered. The enemy was a political party that embraced antisemitism. Sound familiar?

The Democratic Party now confronts a choice it cannot evade through platitudes about “criticism of policy.” The data, the attacks on synagogues and Jewish gatherings, the congressional rhetoric, and the defense of compromised candidates all point in one direction. Antisemitism is gaining ground in America – and the Democratic Party is the prime mover.

So, there ‘tis.