Jewish communities worldwide are feeling an "increasing sense of emergency" due to the recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks. In 2018 alone, according to Tel Aviv University researchers, there has been a 13% increase in such attacks upon Jews and Jewish communities, with the most dramatic cases occurring in Western Europe, and recently, in the United States.
A recent report from the Pew Research Center, "In Western European Countries With Church Taxes, Support for the Tradition Remains Strong," finds that in an ever more secular European continent, official financial support for the churches remain constant, whether people attend services or not.
Thannamunai, a small village some 140 miles northeast of Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, was the place where people defied the ban on Sunday Mass in the wake of the recent terror attacks in the country.