This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Antisemitism is known as the longest hatred, a prejudice that has persisted more than 2,000 years.

Some might have believed that anti-Semitism might have reached its horrific peak in the 40s, the years of the Holocaust,

and that through sheer revulsion, it would have faded.

This is hardly the case.

Well before October 7th, anti-Semitism had been on the rise, in the United States and Europe and well beyond.

Since the explosion of violence in the Middle East, the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Jews in southern Israel,

and the horrific bombing and invasion of Gaza that followed, the rise in anti-Semitic statements and incidents has accelerated,

alarming officials throughout the world.

The director of the FBI, Christopher Ray, recently told a congressional committee that, quote,

this is a threat that is reaching in some way sort of historic levels.

Ray was so alarmed that he warned of potential attacks from foreign terrorist

organizations as well as domestic extremists. We've been seeing it coming from both all ends of

the political spectrum and in between. I've asked Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt to help think this

through. Lipstadt is a historian and she holds a position in the State Department as the special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.

We see it coming from Christians.

We see it coming from Muslims.

We see it coming from atheists.

We see it coming from Jews.

A member of a minority group that faces prejudice

often has members who engage in that very prejudice.

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