How do you raise a child to feel proud, rooted, and secure in their Jewish identity while knowing that visibility can sometimes bring risk – an empathetic look at today’s mental health toll caused by antisemitism.
By Bev Moss-Reilly
Antisemitism is often spoken about through headlines, attacks, protests, security alerts, and rising statistics. All of those matters, and all of it is real – but there is another side to it that is quieter and often far less visible.
It is the emotional toll carried long after the headline fades.
It is the exhaustion of always being alert.
It is the hesitation before entering shul, the pause before sending a child to school, the decision about whether to wear a Magen David openly, and the internal calculation of what feels safe today.
For many Jewish people, the strain is no longer limited to one place. It is not only about Israel. It is not only about a synagogue in one city or a violent outburst in another. It is global, personal, and cumulative.
An attack in Sydney can shake a family in Johannesburg. Gunfire at a synagogue in Toronto can unsettle a Jewish teacher in London.
Hostility in Belgium, harassment in Massachusetts, online hatred, campus intimidation, graffiti, threats, and the growing normalisation of anti-Jewish rhetoric all contribute to the same emotional reality. Safety begins to feel fragile, and daily life becomes heavier than it should be.
This is where the mental health burden deepens.
Antisemitism does not only wound in dramatic moments. It settles into the nervous system. It can leave people hypervigilant, anxious, emotionally drained, angry, grief stricken, numb, or unable to relax fully even in ordinary settings. Some struggle with sleep. Some become more withdrawn. Some avoid public Jewish spaces. Others push themselves to keep functioning while carrying an invisible level of tension that slowly chips away at wellbeing.
For parents, the burden can be especially painful. They are not only managing their own fear, but also trying to protect their children from it without pretending the danger does not exist. That balancing act is exhausting. How much do you say. How much do you shield. How do you raise a child to feel proud, rooted, and secure in their Jewish identity while knowing that visibility can sometimes bring risk. Even when parents say very little, children often sense the unease. They hear changes in tone. They notice extra security. They pick up snippets of conversation, phone calls, headlines, and the tension in adults around them. Children do not need every detail to feel that something is wrong.
Teachers and school staff carry another layer. A Jewish educator is not simply doing a job in an emotionally neutral environment. They may be teaching children while processing their own distress, concern for family members, or anxiety about the wider climate. They may be expected to create calm, safety, and continuity for learners while silently holding their own fear and fatigue. The same is true for rabbis, communal leaders, volunteers, and those who work in Jewish organisations. So many become emotional anchors for others while rarely being asked how they themselves are coping.
There is also a uniquely Jewish depth to this pain. Current antisemitism does not enter an empty room. It lands in a people with memory. For many Jewish individuals and families, today’s hostility can stir inherited grief, historical awareness, and intergenerational trauma. Even those who did not personally live through earlier atrocities may carry the emotional residue of stories, silences, losses, and collective memory. That does not mean Jewish life is defined only by suffering. Far from it. Jewish life is rich with faith, humour, continuity, learning, family, and resilience – but it does mean that present threats can reverberate more deeply because they touch old wounds as well as new ones.
One of the hardest parts of this experience is minimisation. Many Jewish people are not only distressed by the hostility itself, but by the way it is sometimes dismissed, rationalised, or explained away. When fear is minimised, the psychological impact often worsens. People may begin to feel isolated, unseen, or reluctant to speak honestly about what they are carrying. Validation matters. Being taken seriously matters. Emotional safety is not created only by guards, gates, and cameras. It is also created by being believed.
So how can we assist.
We can begin by recognising that this is a genuine mental health issue, not only a political or social one. Chronic vigilance, fear, and exposure to hatred take a toll. Jewish individuals and families need support that is culturally aware, compassionate, and free of judgement. They need spaces where they do not have to explain why they feel shaken by events happening far away, because those events do not feel far away emotionally.
Children need calm and honest conversations, not silence and not overwhelming detail. Parents need support in helping children feel safe without denying reality. Schools need trauma aware approaches that make room for emotion, routine, reassurance, and mental health care. Teachers need support too. So do rabbis, youth leaders, and all those expected to hold communities together.
Communities can also help by creating spaces of warmth and grounding. Prayer, music, movement, ritual, learning, shared meals, support groups, counselling, and simply being together all matter. These do not erase the reality of antisemitism, but they strengthen emotional resilience without demanding emotional suppression. There is a difference between resilience and pretending not to hurt. Real resilience allows room for fear, sadness, anger, and weariness while still making healing possible.
Professional mental health support should also be normalised. There should be no shame in saying that the strain has become too much, that sleep is suffering, that panic is increasing, that children are struggling, or that one feels constantly on edge. Trauma does not always announce itself dramatically. Sometimes it shows up in irritability, withdrawal, tears, overthinking, headaches, digestive upset, exhaustion, or a quiet sense of dread that never fully switches off. These responses are human, and they deserve care.
Jewish communities have always understood the power of showing up for one another. That matters now more than ever. In a world where hostility can flare in multiple countries and where fear travels instantly across borders, one of the most important things we can do is protect emotional wellbeing with as much seriousness as we protect physical safety.
Because when fear settles into everyday Jewish life, the answer cannot be silence. It must be compassion, awareness, support, and the steady reminder that no one should have to carry this weight alone.
About the writer:
Bev Moss-Reilly is a Jewish freelance content writer living in South Africa with a deep and heartfelt focus on mental health, emotional wellbeing, trauma, grief, and the unseen struggles people carry every day. Through her writing and her Mental Health Packs, she aims to bring comfort, awareness, compassion, and practical support to individuals, families, workplaces, and communities. Her work is rooted in empathy, dignity, and the belief that nobody should feel alone in their pain, especially in times of crisis.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
