October 7, 2023 in a Long History of Antisemitic Violence

October 7, 2023, fits a continuum of violence against Jews across millennia. From ancient deportations (Assyria, Babylon) to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Bar Kokhba revolt, medieval pogroms, expulsions from England, France, Spain, and Portugal, the Mawza Exile, Khmelnytsky massacres, and Russian-imperial pogroms, persecution recurred, culminating in the Nazi genocide of six million. After 1945, assaults continued: the Farhud in Baghdad, Kielce, waves of expulsions across the Middle East and North Africa, Suez-era crackdowns, and Poland’s 1968 campaign. On October 7, militants murdered about 1,200, wounded thousands, and took hundreds hostage. Rising antisemitic rhetoric historically foreshadows rising violence.

October 7, 2023, was another in a long line of tragedies befalling Jewish peoples throughout world history.

Starting, at least, in 722 BCE, there was the Assyrian deportation, or the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Sargon II’s inscriptions indicate 27,290 deportees from Samaria. Over 100 years later, in 597–586 BCE, there was the Babylonian exile (Kingdom of Judah) with biblical records indicating about 4,600 deportees in three separate waves of likely only adult males; the total displaced may indicate higher.

70 CE was the siege and fall of Jerusalem. Josephus claims 1.1 million dead while modern scholars consider tens of thousands killed more reasonable and approximately 97,000 enslaved. 132–135 CE saw the Bar Kokhba Revolt. About 580,000 Jewish war dead with devastation, expulsion, and more.

1096 saw the First Crusade’s Rhineland massacres with about 2,000 Jews killed. 1348–1351 had Black Death spread throughout Europe and then the subsequent mass pogroms affect Jewish peoples across Europe. A distinct one was in 1349 in Strasbourg with approximately 900 Jews being burned (some accounts cite higher). The continental totals for this three-year period are unknown.

In 1290, a Jewish community in England was expelled with scholarly estimates of around 3,000 affected by the expulsion. In 1306, King Philip IV expelled about 100,000 Jews. In Spain in 1492, between approximately 40,000 and 160,000 were expelled and tens of thousands were converted, while precise estimates can vary by historian.

In 1497, Portugal saw a widespread series of forced conversions of Jews followed by the Lisbon massacre in 1506 with between 1,900 and 4,000 Jews killed. In 1679, Yemen produced the Mawzaʿ Exile where Jewish communities were expelled to Tihāmah. There was mass displacement and deaths en route. Precise counts are scarce.

Between 1648 and 1649, there were the Khmelnytsky (Chmielnicki) massacres in Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania. The estimates from contemporary scholarship emphasize between 20,000 and 40,000 killed in addition to catastrophic losses and the destruction of community.

1881 to 1906 saw pogroms from the Russian Empire with the 1903 Kishinev massacre killing 45–49 and wounding about 600 Jews. The definitive peak of the murders were the National Socialists under Adolf Hitler of Germany with approximately 6,000,000 Jewish children, women, and men murdered. There is ongoing name-by-name documentation. Approximately 4,900,000 have been named.

There is a misunderstanding of 20th century history. That being, the Holocaust happened and then there was non-violent treatment of Jewish peoples until the massacre of October 7th, 2023, occurred. This is false.

Between June 1 to June 2, 1941, in Baghdad, Iraq, approximately 135–189 Jews were killed and then about 1,000 injured. On July 4, 1946, in Kielce, Poland, about 42 Jews were murdered. Between the late 1940s and 1970s, from Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Syria, and so on, approximately 850,000 Jews were either expelled or left with accompanying violence and confiscations differing by country.

Between 1951 and 1952, about 120,000 to 130,000 were airlifted in Operation Ezra & Nehemiah. In 1956, in Egypt, amidst the Suez crisis, there were expulsions and arrests. In 1968 in Poland, there was the anti-Zionist campaign with about 13,000 Jews forced to emigrate.

Then the October 7, 2023, massacre happened with tolls approximated at 1,139 dead (about 1,175 initially identified), more than 3,400 wounded, and about 251 to 253 hostages taken. Numbers fluctuate as better data comes into reports. Since the war began, the Israeli government reported 14,583 physically wounded by May 26, 2024, and treated in hospitals since October 7, 2023. Therefore, the numbers are definitively higher.

Antisemitic rhetoric is on the rise. So, antisemitic violent incidents will increase in correlation.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen is the publisher of In-Sight Publishing (ISBN: 978-1-0692343) and Editor-in-Chief of In-Sight: Interviews (ISSN: 2369-6885). He writes for The Good Men Project, International Policy Digest (ISSN: 2332–9416), The Humanist (Print: ISSN 0018-7399; Online: ISSN 2163-3576), Basic Income Earth Network (UK Registered Charity 1177066), A Further Inquiry, and other media. He is a member in good standing of numerous media organizations.