fbpx

Report: CA Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Increased By 21%

[additional-authors]
July 3, 2019
A spray-painted swastika was discovered on the concrete next to a baseball field at Dos Vientos Community Park in Conejo Valley. Photo courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League Santa Barbara/Tri-Counties

The California Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report on July 2 revealing that anti-Semitic hate crimes increased by 21 percent in 2018 from the year prior.

The report documented 126 instances of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2018, an increase from 104 in 2017. However, it was a decline from the 160 instances of anti-Semitic hate crimes in 2009.

Jews were the most frequent target of anti-religious hate crimes in California in 2018, followed by the “anti-other religion” category at 30 instances, 28 instances of anti-Muslim hate crimes and 10 instances of anti-Catholic hate crimes.

Despite the increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes, hate crimes overall in California dropped by 2.5 percent from 2017 to 2018, according to the report.

Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Los Angeles tweeted that they were “troubled by a 21 percent increase in reported hate crimes against the Jewish community in California in 2018. The Jewish community remains the largest target of religion-motivated hate crime. Our leadership must speak out against anti-Semitism and hate whenever it occurs.”

ADL San Francisco similarly tweeted:

The ADL’s 2018 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents found that 2018 was the third-highest year of anti-Semitic incidents nationwide since 1979, although anti-Semitic incidents had declined by five percent from 2017.

Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism Executive Director Brian Levin told The Los Angeles Times, “Jews are consistently held responsible for corrupting national institutions, but also helping other groups flood in. With the rise of neo-Nazism, white nationalism, Internet hate and a growing distrust of communal institutions, Jews are seen as manipulating everything from government to immigration patterns.”

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Losing One’s True North

Normally we say goodbye to our loved ones, as they fly back to their normal lives, but what is normal about the lives they fly back to at this moment in time?

Peter Beinart’s Rapture

Instead of correcting some of the hyperbolic anti-Israel “reporting” that has so blurred people’s capacity to know what is going on, he pours fuel on the flames of ignorance and perpetuates a rhetoric that lays blame for the whole conflict primarily or solely on Israel.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.