On May 24, an unidentified person wearing a baseball cap and carrying two large bags walked into the Jewish museum in Brussels. Pulling out a gun, he shot and killed four people and fled the scene. The common turn of phrase “the police are hunting him down” is inaccurate, because the police in Belgium do not have any lead and have no idea who to run after or where. The man appears to have vanished into thin air.

Two of the people killed in this deadly rampage were an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv, Emmanuel and Mira Riva, ages 54 and 53 respectively. According to various accounts, they were on vacation, celebrating their wedding anniversary. The other victims were a volunteer at the museum and one of its employees. The Belgian authorities called it a “hate crime” and Belgian police officials say it had the hallmarks of an “anti-Semitic crime.”

The next day, elections for the European Parliament were held. The results stunned many across the continent. Voting patterns clearly indicate a sharp rise in the strength of the radical right-wing nationalistic parties, some of which are fascist or neo-Nazi. Almost all of them bear clear anti-Semitic marks. In recent times, though, some of these parties have been trying to camouflage their inherent hate of Jews. Instead, they are embracing more “popular” topics such as a xenophobic stand vis-a-vis immigrants and curbing the waves of Muslim immigration inundating the continent and poised to introduce a historic, rapid and irreversible change to its demography.

These two events and their close proximity brought to the headlines in Israel a discussion about “new anti-Semitism,” and more specifically its disconcerting manifestations in Europe. Over the last few days, the Israeli media has been broaching this topic intensively, featuring reports from the Anti-Defamation League as well as overviews about the fear that mars the daily life of many Jews in many European countries, mainly is some regions in France, Britain, Belgium and other places.