Is there an East/West divergence in European Jews’ exposure to antisemitism?

Around 1990, many considered antisemitism to be a “spent force” in Western countries such as the UK and the US. At the same time, Russian antisemitism was surging, leading to fears of pogroms and massive Jewish emigration. Yet there were no pogroms in Russia, and thirty years later, as this paper will argue, the situation had been turned on its head: a new divergence could be observed in terms of where Jews felt safe living and practicing as Jews. By 2020, Jews were anxiously concealing their identity not in Moscow or Vilnius, but in Western cities such as Paris, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Antisemitism seemed to be affecting Jews more severely in the West than in the East. How did this situation come about? This paper will outline the empirical evidence that allows us to speak of such a divergence at all, before moving on to discuss possible explanations.