U.S. Faces Outbreak of Anti-Semitic Threats and Violence

[SummerMadness]

U.S. Faces Outbreak of Anti-Semitic Threats and Violence

A brick shattering a window of a kosher pizzeria on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Jewish diners outside a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles attacked by men shouting anti-Semitic threats. Vandalism at synagogues in Arizona, Illinois and New York.

In Salt Lake City, a man scratched a swastika into the front door of an Orthodox synagogue in the early morning hours of May 16. “This was the kind of thing that would never happen in Salt Lake City,” said Rabbi Avremi Zippel, whose parents founded Chabad Lubavitch of Utah almost 30 years ago. “But it’s on the rise around the country.”

The synagogue has fortified its already substantial security measures in response. “It’s ridiculous, it’s insane that this is how we have to view houses of worship in the United States in 2021,” Rabbi Zippel said, describing fortified access points, visible guards and lighting and security camera systems. “But we will do it.”

The past several weeks have seen an outbreak of anti-Semitic threats and violence across the United States, stoking fear among Jews in small towns and major cities. During the two weeks of clashes in Israel and Gaza this month, the Anti-Defamation League collected 222 reports of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and violence in the United States, compared with 127 over the previous two weeks.

 

[MrMoe]

It seems antisemitism has been a growing problem in New York for a long time. This is from January 2020.

Over the past few months, Jewish people in New York have endured a spike in anti-Semitic violence.

Just weeks after four people were murdered at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, a man with a machete attacked a group of Hasidic men celebrating Hanukkah in Monsey, 35 miles north of New York City.

Attacks on Jewish people in New York, specifically Orthodox Jews, have taken place with disturbing frequency over the past two years. In the third quarter of 2019, hate crime incidents aimed at Jewish people made up nearly half of all hate crime complaints compiled by police in New York City. Since December 23, 2019, at least 13 anti-Semitic attacks have taken place in New York, including one on New Year’s Day in which a young Jewish man was attacked in Brooklyn by two women who allegedly yelled anti-Semitic slurs.

In a statement, the NYPD’s Public Information office told me, “The NYPD has zero tolerance when it comes to hate crimes in New York City. We have deployed assets and resources in Jewish neighborhoods, specifically around houses of worship. This includes an increase of uniform patrols, auxiliary units, as well as plain clothes patrols. Additionally, officers from the Critical Response Command and Strategic Response Group are patrolling these areas.”

As evidenced by the Monsey attack, many of the anti-Semitic attacks aren’t coming from the far right, but from non-white people immersed in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that are just as baseless, virulent, and dangerous as those spread by white nationalists.

For example, in Jersey City, the attackers were part of an extremist wing of the Black Hebrew Israelites that believes Jewish people are imposters (as one acolyte put it in 2007, “Negroes are the real Jews”) and worthy of death. One attacker posted about how Jewish people controlled the government and referred to Jewish people as being part of the “synagogue of Satan,” a phrase derived from the Book of Revelation that has become an anti-Semitic calling card.

And while violence aimed at Orthodox Jews and people who are visibly Jewish (those who wear kippahs, for example) has been increasing for months, media attention and, more importantly, attention from law enforcement agencies, has been sparse. Some media outlets have even appeared to blame the rise in violence on Orthodox Jewish people themselves, arguing that growing Orthodox communities were causing “predictable sparring.”

But anti-Semitic attacks aren’t the fault of the community enduring them. While it’s almost impossible to pinpoint an exact origin for the recent spate of violence, many of the attacks are tied to long-simmering anti-Semitic attitudes based on conspiracy theories and myths that have largely gone unchecked — coupled with political inaction at best and outright anti-Semitism coming from politicians themselves at worst.

The conspiracy theories behind the anti-Semitic violence in New York

 

[Norbert L]

I didn't read the whole article but it wouldn't strike me as unusual that as time gets further away from WW2, more and more people start forgetting.

Some of my questions would be, what is the overall trend since then? Are we seeing a large continuous spike in the western democracies? Or is this par for the course every time some Palestinians decide to throw the proverbial first punch?

 

[Oompa Loompa]

U.S. Faces Outbreak of Anti-Semitic Threats and Violence

I don't understand what "Blue Live Matter", "All Lives Matter", and "Black Lives Matter" have to do with Hamas sympathizers targeting and assaulting Jewish Americans. "Blue Lives Matter" was a direct response to the spike in deliberate targeting and killing of law enforcement officers after the killing of Trevon Martin. "All Lives Matter" was made popular by pacifists who wished to see an end to all violence. That is why I say, "I am against both police brutality and cop killing." But I digress. Regarding the article, I find it rather disturbing that Jews in the United States are being attacked. One can only conclude that this isn't an anti-Zionist motive otherwise the violence would be fairly centered around the nation of Israel. Instead, it is an anti-Semitic motive. I call them "Hamas sympathizers" as opposed to Palestinian sympathizers because I believe that most Palestinians, both at home and abroad, just want to live their lives in peace. Only terrorist groups like Hamas and those who support them will go out of their way to seek violence against Jews in the United States.

 

[SummerMadness]

I don't understand what "Blue Live Matter", "All Lives Matter", and "Black Lives Matter" have to do with Hamas sympathizers targeting and assaulting Jewish Americans. "Blue Lives Matter" was a direct response to the spike in deliberate targeting and killing of law enforcement officers after the killing of Trevon Martin. "All Lives Matter" was made popular by pacifists who wished to see an end to all violence. That is why I say, "I am against both police brutality and cop killing." But I digress. Regarding the article, I find it rather disturbing that Jews in the United States are being attacked. One can only conclude that this isn't an anti-Zionist motive otherwise the violence would be fairly centered around the nation of Israel. Instead, it is an anti-Semitic motive. I call them "Hamas sympathizers" as opposed to Palestinian sympathizers because I believe that most Palestinians, both at home and abroad, just want to live their lives in peace. Only terrorist groups like Hamas and those who support them will go out of their way to seek violence against Jews in the United States.

There's this thing called a signature...

 

[essentialsaltes]

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread in U.S.​

At points in the past half-century, many U.S. antisemitism experts thought this country could be aging out of it, that hostility and prejudice against Jews were fading in part because younger Americans held more accepting views than did older ones.

But a survey released Thursday shows how widely held such beliefs are in the United States today, including among younger Americans. The research by the Anti-Defamation League includes rare detail about the particular nature of antisemitism, how it centers on tropes of Jews as clannish, conspiratorial and holders of power.

Williams and some experts who helped review the study noted that it shows the views of Americans under 30 and those of Americans over 30 are very similar.

[What's old is new again.]

“So the 'new’ antisemitism dates way back. Charges of Jewish conspiracy, Jews in control of the media, politics, entertainment, the money world — all of that dates back way back.

 

[essentialsaltes]

New ADL report raises alarm over antisemitic attacks and incidents reaching a 43-year high​

The Anti-Defamation League said its tally of physical assaults was the highest it has ever logged.

The civil rights organization, which identifies antisemitic incidents by researching reports from police, victims and news organizations, found that 139 Jews were physically assaulted in 111 incidents last year, including the two men in L.A. who survived and the Arizona State professor who did not. The vast majority of the assaults last year did not involve deadly weapons. Still, the totals were up from 131 assault victims in 88 incidents in 2021.

In total, the ADL found 3,697 incidents of antisemitism last year in the U.S., including vandalism and harassment in addition to assaults. The number, the highest the group has counted since it began compiling reports on anti-Jewish hatred in 1979, represents a 36% increase from 2021. That year also set a record with 2,717 incidents

At the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, researchers have crunched numbers from dozens of the biggest cities using state-level and local law enforcement data to find trends that are similar to the ADL‘s findings when it comes to targeting Jews.

“Our data is roughly in line with that of the ADL and illustrates that antisemitism is getting more public and violent,” said Brian Levin, who directs the center. “There is unfortunately a universality to modern antisemitism that afflicts nations around the world, not only here in the U.S., driven by religious and ethnic nationalism, political conspiracy theories, declining trust in domestic institutions and misdirected scapegoating of diaspora Jews for the policies of the Israeli government.”

 

[DaisyDay]

Our feckless Speaker of the House is dog-whistling again.

What are "Soros-backed DA's"?