Watch: In Powerful Address, Lauder Says Antisemitism Is Now an Organized Campaign Against Jews

MANHATTAN — World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder delivered one of the most forceful speeches at Tuesday’s Israel Hayom Summit, warning that the explosion of antisemitism seen worldwide is not the work of “a few angry kids,” but part of a far broader and more dangerous assault on democratic values and the safety of Jews everywhere.

Lauder said years of warnings were ignored by those who insisted antisemitism was disappearing or confined to college campuses. “We were told it was nothing. We were told it wasn’t real. We were told Americans didn’t hate Jews,” he said. “But reality proved us right — and them terribly wrong.”

He pointed to a wave of brutal violence over the past two years in the United States and Europe: a couple in Washington murdered en route to the Israeli Embassy, a Jewish woman burned to death in Colorado during a protest, and a man stabbed in Berlin while visiting a memorial. These acts, Lauder said, reveal a level of hate that can no longer be dismissed or minimized.

Lauder said chants like “from the river to the sea” and calls for a global intifada are explicit calls for the destruction of Jewish life. “In another era, politicians who incited like this would have been arrested,” he said. He drew a chilling comparison to 1939, recalling how Nazi propaganda attempted to spark antisemitism in America — and how nations that refused to take in Jewish refugees effectively sealed their fate.

Even after October 7, he said, the world’s reaction carried a disturbing echo of that same indifference. “October 7 was the Kristallnacht of the 21st century,” Lauder declared. “And yet again, too many looked away.”

Lauder said antisemitism has now embedded itself deeply into school culture, calling classrooms “ground zero of hate.” He cited maps that erase Israel, lesson plans that distort history, and students coming home asking whether Israel is an apartheid state. “This is not ignorance — this is indoctrination,” he said.

To counter it, Lauder urged a full-scale pushback: exposing extremist teachers, fighting misinformation on social media, demanding moral courage from elected officials, and restoring historical truth to education. Teaching the Holocaust, he said, is a critical part of this effort.

“If we do not tell our story,” Lauder warned, “others will — and they will twist it until we no longer recognize ourselves.”

Lauder closed with a stark reminder that the threat goes beyond Jews. “This is an assault on truth itself,” he said. “It is an assault on democracy. And if we do not confront it now, the consequences will not be limited to the Jewish people — they will be felt by the entire free world.”