A woman reacts as she visits the site of the Nova music festival, where partygoers were killed and kidnapped during the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack, on the third anniversary of the attack, near Reim, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

I was on my tractor, using a bush hog to cut my front field, when I realized that the attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, was something unprecedented.

Admittedly, I don’t observe Shabbat in the strictest sense, but I also try not to be plugged into the outside world. So, what started as a small trickle of information from occasional glances at my phone turned into a flood of rumors, news reports, and story fragments, as I tried to understand what was happening and the truth began to emerge.

Invasion. Massacre. Atrocities. Kidnappings. The details were blurry, but the broader picture was clear: This wasn’t another terrorist attack. This was war. And the scale of the fighting would be much bigger than the typical flare-ups in Gaza.

Israelis of course suffered the brutality of Oct. 7 directly. But for Jews in the diaspora, the massacre and the ongoing surge in global antisemitism it unleashed have traumatized the collective Jewish soul, digging deep enough to resonate globally.

All those black and white images of the Holocaust suddenly became filled with color. Textbook illustrations of medieval blood libels turned into actual people. Stories of pogroms in the Russian Empire became more than images in one’s head. These atrocities actually happened, to real people, and no matter how modern and sophisticated we think we are, there’s no law of history to prevent them from happening again.

For many Jews, the historical persecution they learned about was important abstractly but irrelevant to their lives. Sure, mobs once attacked their ancestors simply for being Jews, but that was a problem of a different world. Not here. Not now.

Practically overnight, everything changed.

Today’s Jews became part of the millennia-long story of Jew-hatred, from the Babylonian exile to the totalitarians of the last century. History became daily life, hitting Jews everywhere (often literally) as a horrific wakeup call.

The anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre is above all a day to remember what happened in southern Israel — the scale, the brutality, and, crucially, the bravery of so many heroes — to ensure it is not forgotten and key lessons don’t fade.

However, beyond the Middle East, Oct. 7, 2023, was also a turning point for the diaspora and even the broader Western world, one of those rare dates powerful enough to divide history simply into the world before and the world after.

As readers of The Algemeiner know well, dozens of countries experienced massive surges in antisemitic incidents following Hamas’s attack, and that uptick has continued since then. Even in places where numbers have dipped over the past year, antisemitism remains well above pre-Oct. 7 levels. More troubling, the number of violent incidents has recently spiked to all-time highs in several countries. Antisemites are getting bolder and more ambitious with their hate.

This antisemitism comes in the context of a post-Oct. 7 political reality dominated by conspiracy theories and extremism.

In France and Germany, the far-left and far-right parties are both on the rise, poised to crowd out the center as they duel for power. Meanwhile, riots have broken out on the streets of France in what seems to be a uniting of leftists and Islamists to undermine the country.

In the UK, the Green Party just passed a resolution equating Zionism with racism and calling for a Palestinian state to replace Israel. That came after the Labour government sanctioned Israeli settlements, along with other European governments and Canada. Listening to the officials who announced the sanctions, you’d think these countries don’t have any problems of their own except for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As for the US, the Democratic Socialists of America, an objectively antisemitic organization, is attempting a not-so-hostile takeover of the Democratic Party, facing little resistance. And many Republicans, especially younger ones, are going further down the populist-isolationist pit, a descent that ends somewhere decidedly anti-conservative.

A common theme is that in all these countries, conspiracy theories are infecting more minds than ever, spurred by failure of institutions and boosted by the reach of modern technology. And if it wasn’t obvious, all conspiracy theories ultimately lead to antisemitism, the great explainer of what’s wrong with the world and why it’s always someone else’s fault. In a post-Oct. 7 world, this often takes the form of wild accusations against Israel.

Such chaos existed before, but Hamas terrorists and their Western sympathizers poured gasoline on simmering fires across the West that were already creating disunity.

The irony is that Israel will be fine. Its economy has proven remarkably resilient. Its deterrence has been restored. And its tech sector will continue to make the Jewish state an essential partner for any country wanting to be secure and prosperous in the 21st century.

Yes, Israel’s relationships with many Western governments have declined. But they’ve improved in places such as Africa, Latin America, and, most importantly, the Middle East itself. The one wild card that really matters is the US, where declining public support for Israel could become a real issue.

That important note aside, the tragedy of Oct. 7 forced Israel to once again get serious about the realities of being a small country living in the world’s most chaotic region. And it produced a younger generation of heroes who make supporters of the country hopeful for the future.

As for the West, well, Oct. 7 was also a dividing line in history. Except three years later, we see a civilization heading in the wrong direction, desperately in need of wise leadership and spiritual revival.

Aaron Kliegman is the executive editor of The Algemeiner.