The far-right is on the rise, but how should the Jewish community respond? Last Thursday (20 February) HIAS+JCORE and HIAS Europe were joined by Noemi De Segni, Nick Lowles, Alex Sobel MP and Hanna Veiler at a special webinar to discuss this important question.
Opening the session, Hope not Hate’s Nick Lowles explored the UK context, including the forces behind last summer’s far-right riots. Nick spotlighted that interconnected ecosystems are increasingly bringing together figures from the far and populist right.
“In a way, the old boundaries… the ‘cordon sanitaire’, between the conservative movement and the fascist movement: that’s gone… People move between the two. Certainly ideas move between the two. The language they’re using at the extremes (is) going to the mainstream.”Nick Lowles, Chief Executive, Hope not Hate
Nick also warned that mainstream parties will not win back voters who have moved to the populist right by being tough on migration. Highlighting that mainstream opinion is still supportive of a compassionate, but controlled, approach to migration, he argued:
“There’s a real danger that we chase an issue that a) we’re not going to win; b) is morally wrong; and c) isn’t answering the real concerns of why these people are going to the right.”
With radical right parties now in government in seven EU countries, event moderator David Mason then brought the discussion to Europe.
Noemi De Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, introduced the challenging backdrop of Italian fascism and public understanding of this.
Noemi then stressed the importance of a humanitarian approach to Jewish communities.
“Of course for us as Jews, we don’t want to sustain a position that is ‘we hate immigrants, we don’t want immigrants, we don’t like immigrants’… As Jews, we always try to highlight the humanitarian side.”Noemi De Segni, President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities
Explaining the work Italian Jewish communities have undertaken, she also shared:
“We supported a project of supporting refugees from Syria. So it’s Muslim families that we host in Italy. It was important to give a sign and proof that as Jews we do not discriminate and we want to live together.”
With the event held just days before the 2025 German election, we were pleased to be joined by Hanna Veiler, President of the Jewish Student Union Germany. Hanna outlined that the vast majority of German Jews are in fact refugees themselves, and that the community takes a strong position against collaboration with the AfD.
She also expressed concerns about how the far-right has instrumentalised issues around Germany’s culture of remembrance and the insecurity many young people are facing.
As leader of a student body, Hanna then emphasised the difficult impact that October 7th has had on young left-wing Jews, with many left feeling unwelcome in progressive spaces.
“There is a strong separation from the left and a lot of existential fears… the AfD uses… those fears, especially from young people.”
In spite of these challenges, she concluded by calling for the Jewish community to not allow itself to be duped by the far-right.
“We can’t allow ourselves to align with the far-right ever. Because even though they try to sell themselves as the real friends of the Jews… they will start with the Muslims and we are next and we need to make people understand this… even though the fears of leftwing antisemitism… are very strong.”Hanna Veiler, President of the Jewish Student Union Germany
The conversation closed with a discussion about the role mainstream parties of the centre-left and centre-right can play. UK parliamentarian Alex Sobel MP shared his worry that many of the same conditions exist now which developed through the 1930s: the rise of the far-right across Europe, war in the continent, and spreading ‘fear of the other’. These have all been supercharged by misinformation and disinformation campaigns on social media.
He then underlined the important of Jewish communities avoiding such movements:
“Tommy Robinson has tried to cosy up to Jewish communities. We cannot at all in any form be seduced by that. Not everyone who says they are friends of the Jewish community are friends of the Jewish community.”
Turning the focus back to refuge and asylum policy, Alex stressed the positive elements of the UK government’s new asylum bill, before stating the need to hear voices with lived experience.
“I think that most British people, if they met and heard the stories of asylum seekers, their view would be quite different… We absolutely need to be telling those stories.”Alex Sobel MP
The session finished with insights from our panel on how communities can combat the rise of the populist right. Speakers agreed on the need for faith communities to come together, and for Jews across the continent to avoid any political movements which cross the line into racism and xenophobia. This must be matched with a strong, positive vision from political leaders: one which rallies people together, rather than pandering to divisive far-right policies and narratives.
