The death of Paul Kessler in a suburb of Los Angeles was widely covered yesterday. Police still haven’t arrested anyone and aren’t saying this was a hate crime yet. But Kessler’s death seems like the tip of an anti-Semitic iceberg. Crimes targeting Jews have been on the rise around the world, some of them merely threatening and some on the verge of being deadly.

In the threatening category, just a few days ago a Jewish man in Beverly Grove, which is just east of Beverly Hills, found a message painted on his garage door.

Scott Shulman, who for many years worked as a network news photographer covering wars in Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan, said he never expected this kind of hate in his neighborhood.

“It said ‘feed the Jews to the pigs,’” Shulman told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell. “I feel targeted because I’m a Jew and I go to synagogue, and it targets my people. I do feel targeted.”

There’s video of a guy in black clothes spray painting the door. Police are treating it as a hate crime, suggesting this wasn’t a random tagging that just happened to wind up on a house owned by a Jew.

In Malmo, Sweden a group of protesters carrying Palestinian flags burned a Jewish flag outside a synagogue and chanted “bomb Israel.”

A demonstrator burned an Israeli flag outside the only synagogue in the Swedish city of Malmo, on Saturday as about a dozen other protesters chanted “bomb Israel” while waving Palestinian flags…

Malmo, a southern port city, has a large Muslim minority that, according to some estimates, accounts for about a third of the city’s population of roughly 300,000.

The city’s Jewish population has declined from about 800 in 1997 to fewer than 400 in 2019. In 2011, Malmo saw massive anti-Israel demonstrations and antisemitic rioting in response to plans to host Israel’s tennis team.

In Montreal, Canada this week someone through Molotov cocktails at a synagogue. Fortunately no one was hurt and the damage was minimal. PM Trudeau condemned the attack.

The attempted arson at @FederationCJA West Island and Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal is deeply disturbing. Antisemitism is completely unacceptable and must always be condemned – our government will continue to work with Jewish communities to combat this hatred.

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) November 7, 2023

In Seattle, the FBI is involved after at least 4 synagogues received letters containing a white powder.

Leaders in the Jewish community met with law enforcement as they have been experiencing an increase in anti-Semitic threats.

Four Jewish places of worship have received threats prompting both evacuations and hazmat responses in less than a week.

A suspicious letter sent to a Seattle synagogue prompted a hazmat response Monday night…

This incident follows three similar ones that occurred in Seattle on Friday evening.

Fortunately the powder in the letters wasn’t harmful. This kind of anti-Semitic behavior has been especially bad in France where nearly 500 people have been arrested in just the past month.

France has recorded more than a thousand anti-Semitic acts since the deadly October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen on Israel, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Sunday.

“The number of anti-Semitic acts has exploded,” he told France 2 television, adding that 486 people have been arrested for such offences, including 102 foreigners…

France’s Jewish population, estimated at over 500,000, is the largest in Europe and the third-biggest in the world, after Israel and the United States.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said Sunday that there had been 257 anti-Semitic acts in the Paris region alone, and 90 arrests.

One incident in Paris involved spray painting Jewish stars around the city. Police investigated and found the people doing this were being paid by someone living abroad.

Beccuau said that around 60 Stars of David had been found daubed on walls in Paris on the morning of October 31 and similar stars also found in outlying regions…

“At this stage it is thus not to be excluded that the daubing the stars of David was done at the express demand of an individual residing abroad,” Beccuau added…

The graffiti, which for some brought back horrific memories of the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War II and deportation of its Jews to death camps, were condemned across the political spectrum.

But in some cases, the anti-Semitism goes beyond threats to actual violence. That appears to be what happened in Lyon, France last weekend.

A police source told Le Monde the stabbing took place early Saturday afternoon on the doorstep of the victim’s apartment. According to her account, the woman, who is in her thirties and was alone in her apartment, opened the door when the doorbell rang. She was then stabbed twice in the abdomen by a hooded man. The victim said she called her cousin for help. When she arrived at the scene, the cousin called the emergency services and discovered a swastika on the door. The victim’s Jewish-sounding name and the mezuzah next to her door were evidence of her religion.

Fortunately the victim survived. In Sydney there was another anti-Semitic attack which nearly turned deadly.

This is the sort of situation the media is usually eager to cover as a “climate of hate,” i.e. a bunch of anti-Semitic rallies and speeches which subsequently seem to inspire threats and violence. But in this case the media doesn’t seem so eager to connect these dots. Anti-Semitic crimes are on the rise around the world but no conclusions are being drawn about who is behind them or about whose speech might be inspiring them. That would be fine with me if only the media followed the same rules for everyone but of course they don’t do that. If it were possible to blame any of these attacks on the political right we’d be hearing about it in the media daily. But since most of the people rallying for Palestine, on campus and in the streets, are leftists no one in the media wants to make that connection.