The New York Met this week cancelled its planned global telecast of John Adams's The Death of Klinghoffer, the opera that portrays the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship by the Palestinian Liberation Front in 1985. While emphasising that the work itself is not antisemitic, the Met's general manager, Peter Gelb, said that he recognised concerns among Jews "at this time of rising antisemitism, particularly in Europe". Regardless of one's view of either the opera or the Met's decision, Mr Gelb is unfortunately spot on about Europe.
A survey of global attitudes towards Jews conducted by the Anti-Defamation League recently found that 24% of people in western Europe (37% in France, 29% in Spain, 27% in Germany, 69% in Greece) and 34% in eastern Europe (41% in Hungary, 45% in Poland, 38% in Ukraine) harboured antisemitic views. By this it meant they agreed with six or more classical stereotypes about Jews from a list of 11 including "Jews have too much control over the US government", "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars", and "People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave".
Such beliefs are translating to support at the ballot box. At last month's European elections, three countries – Greece, Hungary and Germany – elected neo-Nazi MEPs. Germany's NPD openly describes itself as national socialist. Antisemitism is also leading to violence against Jews. Four people were murdered at the Jewish Museum in Brussels just days before the European elections. Facing trial is Mehdi Nemmouche, a French Muslim radicalised in Syria with an expressly antisemitic agenda. In 2012, a rabbi and three children were murdered at a Jewish school in Toulouse by Mohammad Merah, another radicalised Muslim with similarly antisemitic views. There were 170 antisemitic acts reported to the Paris-based Jewish Community Protection Service and the French Ministry of the Interior in the first three months of 2014. Jews in Kiev, Bucharest and Stockholm have been attacked, the Jewish cemetery in Andrychów desecrated and the president of Rome's Jewish community was sent the head of a pig in a box.
When antisemitic attitudes are so widespread across Europe, these tragic and terrifying incidents are the real and disturbing consequences. No wonder Jews all over Europe are feeling increasingly worried. Over half of French Jews now think that "Jews have no future in France". As many as 75% of French Jews say they are considering emigrating. Many already have. One of my closest friends recently moved from France to Canada, because he felt "the situation there is no longer safe for my [Jewish] children".
We cannot as a continent allow ourselves once again to be passive witnesses. We need to acknowledge the scale of the problem, understand the forces driving it, and seek to do something to stop it in its tracks: zero tolerance.
Undoubtedly the economic downturn has inflamed matters. In a 2009 European survey, 31% of respondents said that they believed Jews were responsible for the financial crisis. "Jews have too much power in international financial markets" is of course another "classical" antisemitic trope and the link between economic crisis and the rise of antisemitism is all too familiar on this continent. But there is more here at play. Jews in Europe now face a three-pronged attack.
First, from the far right, for whom antisemitism is a long-established part of their manifesto. Second, from the liberal left, whose often knee-jerk anti-Zionism serves to fan the flames of antisemitism, all too frequently expressing its hostility to Israel in language and imagery traditionally deployed to attack Jews.
Jews around the world, even those who disapprove of some of the Israeli government's policies towards Palestinians, find it hard to understand why Israel, a democracy in which women and gay people are treated equally, is singled out for academic boycotts, divestments and sanctions by many such supposed liberals – rather than Saudi Arabia or Qatar, say, countries where homosexuality is punished by death and rape victims risk being charged with adultery.
And finally but no less disturbingly, Jews face attack from an increasingly violent cadre of Islamist extremists. With radicalisation appearing to be on the increase, this is a problem that looks likely to grow in Europe in the next few years.
These three constituencies are not always separate. You'll see the troika in the audiences of French comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, whose "jokes" include the belittling the Holocaust and references to gas ovens. At a typical anti-Israel demonstration there will be members of the far right and the political left as well as Islamist extremists. The new antisemitism is rainbow coloured, and its heterogeneity makes it an especially fearsome foe. Europe's governments need to act unreservedly and without delay. A pan-European plan to deal with antisemitism online, as part of a broader package to deal with online racism, is urgently needed. I for one won't be reading the social media posts that are likely to follow this article. I am talking about legislation with teeth.
European security services, stretched as they are, need to have sufficient focus on the threats facing their Jewish citizens and deploy sufficient budgets to address them.
Interfaith education in schools, prisons and wider communities needs investment if there is to be generational change. Credible measures also need to be put in place to prevent the continued funding of extremist imams by Saudi Arabia.
But fighting antisemitism cannot just be a top-down initiative. Each of us has to take responsibility for this project. This means being mindful about language and the imagery we accept. It means standing up to the use of the word "Yid" at football stadiums or the person at the dinner party who says: "Well, they are tight, aren't they?" and sniggers. It means being careful to keep criticism against Israel fair and legitimate – evidence based, politically balanced and absent of racial overtones – so that it doesn't demonise Jews. It means understanding our own latent biases, so that we can consciously address them.
The Death of Klinghoffer neither condemns nor condones the execution of the American Jew Leon Klinghoffer by Palestinian terrorists. In the world of opera this may be acceptable. This may be the prerogative of art. In the real world not taking a stand against antisemitism is categorically not an option.
Noreena Hertz is an author and honorary professor at University College London. From 1996 to 1997 she worked on the Middle East peace process with Palestinians, Egyptians, Israelis and Jordanians.