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ADL: Anti-Semitism Is ‘Not Constrained by Specific Ideology or Politics’

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May 18, 2020
From left: Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Vice President of Leadership Deb Leibzig, Center on Extremism Vice President Oren Segal, Southern Division Vice President Allison Padilla-Goodman. Screenshot from YouTube.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) held a webinar on May 14 delving deeper into its latest Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, explaining that anti-Semitism is “not constrained by specific ideology or politics.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that 2019 had the highest number of incidents of anti-Semitism that the ADL has ever recorded at 2,107. There were increases in all major categories: vandalism, harassment and violence.

“The data doesn’t lie,” Greenblatt said. “Something is going on.”

There were 61 incidents of anti-Semitic violence in 2019, including the Chabad of Poway shooting in April 2019, which resulted in one woman dead, and the stabbing in Monsey, N.Y., that resulted in five injured and one dead.

“It should be clear that the 61 incidents that we logged included 95 individual victims of anti-Semitic incidents,” Greenblatt said.

Screenshot from YouTube.

Greenblatt pointed out that there is a wide variety of motives behind anti-Semitic violence. Poway shooting suspect John Timothy Earnest is a white supremacist who also allegedly set fire to a mosque, according to Greenblatt, whereas the alleged perpetrators in the Jersey City, N.J., kosher supermarket shooting in December were Black Hebrew Israelites. Not all Black Hebrew Israelites are anti-Semitic but some view Jews as biblical imposters, Greenblatt explained.

“Anti-Semitism happens everywhere in an organized and unorganized way; that’s why it’s so critical to call it out wherever and whenever it happens,” Greenblatt said.

ADL Center on Extremism Vice President Oren Segal pointed out there was a slight decrease in anti-Semitic incidents on college campuses, from 201 in 2018 to 186 in 2019. However, there was an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in non-Jewish K-12 schools, from 344 in 2018 to 411 in 2019.

“The sad truth is, we believe that these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg,” Segal said, explaining that the ADL believes that “incidents in schools are the most severely underreported.”

He went onto say that while most perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents are “not constrained by specific ideology or politics,” the number of known extremists committing incidents increased 13% from 2018 to 2019. Some of the known extremists are the Daily Stormer Book Club and the Ku Klux Klan group the White Knights.

Screenshot from YouTube.

ADL Southern Division Vice President Allison Padilla-Goodman then explained that instances of anti-Semitic harassment and assault tend to be more personal and confrontational, whereas instances of vandalism are more widely seen.

“The two more frequent types of places where we see [anti-Semitic] incidents occur are public spaces and public schools,” Padilla-Goodman said, adding that incidents “usually reverberate well beyond the individual that is being targeted.”

Two recent anti-Semitic incidents featured graffiti of swastikas found on two synagogues in Huntsville, Ala., on April 8 and 10. Padilla-Goodman praised the community’s reaction to the incidents, as area residents provided the synagogues with food, flowers, handmade cards and resources to remove the graffiti.

“These happy endings, they don’t always make the headlines … but they are behind a lot of them,” Padilla-Goodman said.

Greenblatt proceeded to discuss anti-Zionism, which he described as people denigrating “the Jewish state with the same tropes they use to denigrate the Jewish people.” He said that there were 175 instances of anti-Zionism in 2019, an increase from 140 the year before. One such instance was graffiti on a rock at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in September stating, “Jews did 9-11. Google: Dancing Israelis.”

Additionally, Greenblatt pointed out that there are various conspiracy theories blaming Jews and Israel for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is why we say clearly and unequivocally: anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism,” Greenblatt said.

Greenblatt believes that there are a multitude of factors that have led to the recent rise of anti-Semitism. He said that a heavily charged political environment has been a contributing factor, saying that it started with name-calling at the top, referring to President Donald Trump.

Additionally, economic anxiety also has contributed, Greenblatt argued, pointing a growing divide between the rich and poor as wages have remained stagnant.

“That creates an environment where scapegoating flourishes and thrives,” Greenblatt said.

He added that social media also have given anti-Semitism more attention.

“Extremists have exploited all of these trends to insert themselves into the margins and into the mainstream,” Greenblatt said.

The ADL CEO pointed to the fact that 12 white supremacists and neo-Nazis ran for public office at the federal, state and local level. For instance, a neo-Nazi who ran for Congress in Illinois in 2018 as a Republican received 56,000 votes, according to Greenblatt.

Additionally, anti-Zionists have been running for office on the political left, Greenblatt said.

“I don’t think either side is exempt,” Greenblatt said. “No political party as a monopoly on morality.”

Greenblatt said that people could take action against anti-Semitism through reporting anti-Semitic incidents to the ADL whenever they occur.

“It doesn’t take long but the impact could be lasting,” he said.

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