Opinion: B'nai B'rith's Evan Bernstein Says Antisemitism Comes 'From Both Ends at Once,' From New York to Paris to London
In a Fox News column, the head of B'nai B'rith International cites a Diamond District stabbing, assaults in north London and French protest posts to argue both political extremes treat Jewish safety as secondary. The views are his.
This is a summary of an opinion column on Fox News by Evan R. Bernstein, chief executive officer of B'nai B'rith International. The views are his, not RightNewsRightNow's.
His thesis. Bernstein writes that "this past month has offered a clear picture of how antisemitism actually works. It does not arrive from one political direction. It arrives from both ends at once." He calls this the "horseshoe."
His examples. On Oct. 21 in Manhattan's Diamond District, a 26-year-old Jewish man was stabbed in the back while doing outreach. He says it is being investigated as a possible hate crime and a woman has been arrested and charged. Around the same time in Stamford Hill, north London, three Jewish women, one pushing a baby in a stroller, were assaulted. He says a suspect was detained by community security volunteers and later charged, and police treated the incidents as suspected hate crimes.
France. During France's October student-led cost-of-living protests, which he says became the country's worst street violence in years, Palestinian flags and keffiyehs appeared among rioters. He says a monitoring group documented more than 1,300 posts on X blaming Jews, Israel or the Mossad for the unrest. Far-right accounts said "the Jews did this to France," he writes, and far-left accounts used the language of colonization and resistance.
The argument. On one end, he says, Jews are cast as alien outsiders who secretly run banks, media and government. On the other, they are cast as white colonizers whose state should not exist. "The words differ. The outcome is the same." He says the two sides need no coordination to land on the same target.
His numbers. French Interior Ministry figures put antisemitic incidents at roughly 1,320 in 2025, more than half of recorded anti-religious offenses, though Jews are under one percent of the population. In New York City, he says, Jews account for a majority of confirmed hate crimes.
His close. He warns Americans not to treat this as a European problem. "The people in the middle do not get to pick an end of the horseshoe and call it safe."
What we could not check. We did not verify the incident details or statistics he cites. This summary covers the portions of the column we could read.