This year, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I was struck not only by what was remembered, but by what was left unspoken. The day exists to preserve memory, but its deeper purpose lies in shaping responsibility in the present. Memory alone does not protect societies. Protection comes from institutions, leadership, education, and the moral boundaries that govern public life.
Over the past year, Voice of the People conducted a global listening initiative involving more than 10,000 Jews across countries, generations, and communities. The goal was not to map ideology or political affiliation, but to understand lived experience. What emerged was a consistent and deeply grounded sense of vulnerability. Jews across the globe described fear of visibility, hesitation around expressing identity, concern for family safety, and a growing sense that belonging can no longer be assumed.
The findings point to antisemitism not as episodic or marginal, but as structural, normalized, and increasingly embedded in social, cultural, academic, and digital environments. Respondents spoke of adapting daily behavior, avoiding public symbols of identity, recalibrating where they feel safe, and limiting how visibly Jewish they allow themselves to be in public life. Younger participants described hostility in universities and social spaces. Older generations noted familiar patterns they believed belonged to another era.
One respondent captured this reality with devastating clarity: “With much pain, never since the Holocaust were you afraid to show or say that you are Jewish.”
The Holocaust did not begin with extermination. It began with dehumanization, social exclusion, institutional failure, and the erosion of moral boundaries. It advanced through silence, accommodation, and normalization. History shows that the collapse of safety begins long before violence becomes visible.
Holocaust remembrance therefore carries meaning beyond commemoration. Its purpose is to sharpen awareness of early warning signs: language that dehumanizes, narratives that legitimize exclusion, environments that normalize hostility, and institutions that hesitate to act. These dynamics rarely arrive suddenly. They develop gradually, often quietly, within cultural norms and accepted discourse.
The present moment carries particular risk because antisemitism now spreads at unprecedented speed through digital platforms. It circulates through moral and political language that obscures its impact. It embeds itself within institutional settings through ambiguity, delay, and diffused responsibility. Its indirect visibility allows it to persist without sustained confrontation.
For many Jews today, fear extends beyond physical safety. It reflects uncertainty about legitimacy, belonging, and participation in public life. Jewish identity increasingly involves calculation rather than confidence. These patterns are consistent across geography, age, and community, and they signal not only individual anxiety, but civic failure.
The return of the last hostage this week closed one chapter of trauma, but not the deeper reckoning it represents. October 7 did not only mark an act of violence; it reshaped Jewish consciousness, vulnerability, and responsibility in the present. Holocaust memory, October 7, and the lived fears Jews describe today are not separate narratives — they are part of a continuous moral landscape. This is precisely where Voice of the People’s mission sits: to hold memory and responsibility together, to anchor Jewish identity in both remembrance and renewal, and to help shape a Jewish future grounded not only in survival, but in dignity, safety, and collective resilience.
This reality places responsibility on societies, not only on Jewish communities. Antisemitism is an indicator of broader breakdowns in civic culture, institutional accountability, and moral leadership. When it grows unchecked, it reflects weaknesses in how societies educate, regulate digital spaces, enforce protections, and respond to early signals of exclusion.
In reflecting on this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is clear that remembrance alone is insufficient. The day must also function as accountability. Accountability for education systems that fail to address contemporary antisemitism with clarity and rigor. Accountability for digital platforms whose design and enforcement structures enable its spread. Accountability for institutions that delay response until harm is unmistakable. Accountability for leadership cultures that avoid clarity when clarity is required.
The voices we heard through the Voice of the People initiative are not asking for special treatment. They are asking for systems that respond early, institutions that act consistently, and leadership that treats Jewish safety as a foundational democratic responsibility.
Holocaust remembrance carries meaning when it shapes how societies govern, educate, regulate, and protect. Its purpose is not only to honor the past, but to safeguard living communities.
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day did not end when the ceremonies concluded. It lingered as a question of responsibility. The value of remembrance is measured not by symbolism, but by whether fear is allowed to return unchallenged.
Shirel Dagan-Levy is the CEO of Voice of the People