By Ariella Esterson, JNS
Cataloguing Jews and Jewish institutions for political purposes is not neutral.
Holocaust analogies, we are frequently warned, are dangerous gateway drugs. At the same time, the lessons of the past instruct us to notice malignant patterns and to avoid the paths we now know lead to unspeakable tragedy.
The Holocaust was not merely a calamity of hate but a catastrophe enabled by the systematic identification, cataloguing and isolation of Jewish citizens. In Nazi Germany, names, addresses and associations were weaponized to strip human beings of their dignity, and ultimately, of their lives. Identification became the first step toward annihilation.
As the world marks the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, it is that grim history that makes recent mapping projects targeting Jews and Jewish communities so unnerving.
A very recent example, the BarcelonaZ project launched in October 2025, caused alarm across Spain and internationally. Claiming to try to “understand how Zionism operates,” it logged more than 150 schools, businesses, nonprofits and organizations in Barcelona and Catalonia allegedly linked to Jews or Israel, categorizing them as “Zionist” and publishing their sensitive private details like location and contact information.
Spanish and international civil-rights groups warned that this mapping crossed a line from political critique into stigmatization and outright discrimination. Singling out Jewish-owned or allied institutions, especially schools, evokes memories of the 1930s, when Nazi Germany publicly boycotted and targeted Jewish businesses. The episode underscores a troubling global trend: As political passions intensify, tools designed for data visualization are being repurposed to target Jews as a community, rather than to objectively debate policies or ideas.
It’s not just Europe.
Disturbing parallels exist in a Canadian project known as “Find IDF Soldiers,” organized by online publication The Maple, which in February 2025 published a list of 85 Canadians alleged to have served in the Israel Defense Forces. By January 2026, the database was updated to include an additional 121 names. Each name is hyperlinked to a biography, including personal information, such as the synagogue they attended and their parents’ place of employment. The title, “Find IDF Soldiers,” signals the project’s intent: to locate and publicly identify individuals connected to Israel’s military, reading less like research to impact policy and more like a tool to single out people for harassment or intimidation.
The project quickly expanded with a follow-up database called “GTA to IDF,” highlighting the broader ecosystem of Jewish schools, synagogues and summer camps in the Greater Toronto Area connected to those listed. The database explicitly aimed to show the role Canadian institutions play in supporting Israel and the IDF, indicting Jewish organized life itself on the docket of geopolitical discourse.
Like BarcelonaZ, most of these doxxing projects go beyond military service and aim to stigmatize all facets of Jewish, “Zionist” communities. In Boston, in 2022, the Boston Mapping Project, created anonymously and promoted by groups like BDS Boston, focused on Jewish-affiliated organizations and what it termed their “Zionist” networks. The interactive map listed nearly 500 entities, from synagogues and civil society organizations to universities and government offices, highlighting supposed connections between them.
The map went far beyond analysis, effectively marking Jewish institutions as targets. With a tagline suggesting that “every network can be disrupted,” the project raised serious concerns about potential harassment and security risks, as well as invited reported monitoring by the FBI.
Naturally, these blacklists and registries do not exist in a vacuum. In a world of exploding antisemitic attacks of deadly proportions—in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and beyond—they should be seen for what they are: hit lists.
The lessons of the Holocaust have thus never been more urgent. The road to abject brutality often begins with classification, name-listing and othering. Jews were not rounded up randomly; they were found and counted, isolated and hunted down.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day should not be a mere exercise in memory. It should be a warning: the tools of our time carry moral responsibility. Cataloguing Jews and Jewish institutions for political purposes is not neutral. After a century in which Jews were dehumanized, tracked, and annihilated, society must take a firm stand.
Safeguarding Jewish communities worldwide must remain a top priority, alongside the values of free expression and debate. Equally important is recognizing when purported activism slips into patterns that echo history’s darkest chapters. Never again must mean never again, including never again allowing Jewish communities to be singled out, mapped and made vulnerable in the name of abstracted political agendas.
The stakes, as ever, are far too high.
