High Level of Antisemitic Incidents

Many posts have discussed antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war. 

From the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) :

The year 2025 was the third-highest year on record for antisemitic incidents since the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) began tracking them in 1979.

Each year, the ADL tracks incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and physical assault in the United States in our annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. While incidents of harassment and vandalism decreased significantly in 2025 from record highs in 2023 and 2024, physical assaults this past year were higher than ever before. In 2025, there was an average of 17 incidents per day, compared to an average of eight incidents per day between 2020 and 2022.

More than two years after October 7, 2023, fundamentally transformed the landscape of antisemitism in America, the data make clear that while the fight against antisemitism and the work that ADL does has yielded measurable progress, the work of tracking, confronting and dismantling antisemitism demands our continued, unwavering vigilance. Rigorous, year-over-year tracking of antisemitic incidents is essential to understand the true size and scope of this threat, identify emerging trends, and measure which efforts are working and where more action is needed.

 

Antisemitism, One Year Later

Many posts have discussed antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war. 

From ADL:

There have been more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in the year since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, according to ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) preliminary data. This is the highest number of incidents ever recorded in any single year period since ADL started tracking in 1979.

These newly released figures, from Oct. 7, 2023 to Sept. 24, 2024, represent an over 200-percent increase compared to the incidents reported to us during the same period a year before, which saw 3,325 incidents.

“Today, we mourn the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, marking one year since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. From that day on, Jewish Americans haven’t had a single moment of respite,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “Instead, we’ve faced a shocking number of antisemitic threats and experienced calls for more violence against Israelis and Jews everywhere.”

According to the ADL Center on Extremism, which gathers reports and tracks antisemitic incident data, these more than 10,000 antisemitic incidents break down into the following categories:

· Over 8,015 incidents of verbal or written harassment.

· Over 1,840 incidents of vandalism.

· Over 150 incidents of physical assault.

Moreover, at least 1,200 of these antisemitic incidents happened on college campuses. In the same period a year before, ADL recorded about 200 incidents, representing a 500-percent increase.

Of these incidents, over 2,000 occurred at Jewish institutions such as synagogues and Jewish centers. More than half of all incidents at Jewish institutions took the form of bomb threats (only 81 bomb threats against Jewish institutions were recorded in the same period in the prior year.)

ADL’s preliminary data also found that over 3,000 of all incidents took place during anti-Israel rallies, which featured regular explicit expressions of support for terrorist groups including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), one of the most concerning antisemitic trends ADL captured since Oct. 7, 2023.

Each year, ADL tracks incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States. This data is published annually in the Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. In 2023, ADL recorded an unprecedented total number of 8,873 antisemitic incidents, a 140-percent increase from the previous year.

ADL expects these preliminary figures to increase as it receives more incident reports from partners, law enforcement and victims. Final antisemitic incident data for 2024 will be published in the spring of 2025.

To learn more about our methodology, please refer to the methodology section of our 2023 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.

ADL is the leading anti-hate organization in the world. Founded in 1913, its timeless mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Today, ADL continues to fight all forms of antisemitism and bias, using innovation and partnerships to drive impact. A global leader in combating antisemitism, countering extremism and battling bigotry wherever and whenever it happens, ADL works to protect democracy and ensure a just and inclusive society for all. More at www.adl.org.

How to Handle Hecklers

A number of posts have discussed antisemitism and the Israel-Hamas war. 

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld teaches pro-Ham hecklers/protesters who paid money to heckle at his show the DOs and DON'TS of their craft.

"You need to go back and tell whoever is running your organization: We just gave more money to a Jew.'"
pic.twitter.com/ff9biqrSCH

— 🚨 Katherine Brodsky (@mysteriouskat) June 23, 2024

Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism

 At Inside Higher Ed, Jessica Blake interviews Prof. Benjamin Ginsberg:

Q: You are a scholar of Jewish history and you recently released a book on antisemitism in America. How do you think we got here?

A: I’ll give you the short version. I think this began as a result of the Israel-Arab war. In 1967, Israel defeated all of its Arab neighbors, and this had a number of consequences which still resonate through the world. But one of the consequences was to transform Israel from a small socialist state, which was loved by politicians of the left. The war transformed Israel into a power. Moreover, it brought it into the American security orbit and the U.S. began to arm Israel.

To socialists, this was sort of a great betrayal. They began to see Israel as an agent of American imperialism. This became even more manifest with a huge migration of Muslims from the Middle East into Western Europe. Socialists and other left parties saw Muslims as new voters for their coalition. Muslim voters weren’t much interested in the theories of Karl Marx, but the European socialist parties found one point on which they could agree with their putative new followers—and that was Israel.

Both groups could cheerfully oppose Israel. So anti-Zionism became an important plank in the European socialist platform. From there, it migrated to the United States, where anti-Zionism has become a very important element in left liberal politics in the U.S., as we see now.

...

Q: Do you draw a line in the sand between anti-Zionism and antisemitism? And if so, where is it?

A: This is endlessly debated in America. However, in much of the world, there’s no difference. Moreover, even though anti-Zionism and antisemitism might be philosophically different, in the political arena, they become one in the same. If you’re an anti-Zionist, your opponents are likely to be Jews. From that clash emerges a certain degree of enmity. This is why there’s kind of a mix of anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric from these encampments.

These positions become blended for several reasons. One of which—and this was a question well before October 7—is why Israel? Arguably, there are many regimes in the world that are more despicable than Israel. More Muslims are oppressed by other Muslim governments than are oppressed by Israel. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt—these are very repressive regimes. So why direct animus toward Israel? In some cases, it’s motivated by an underlying dislike of Jews.

Naked Bigotry at Duke

 

Jerry Seinfeld was chosen as the commencement speaker at Duke University.

Seinfeld is an American Jew - who as far as I know doesn't sit on Israel's war cabinet, serve in the IDF, or have absolutely anything to do with the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

That didn’t… pic.twitter.com/4tvxuwomCp

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) May 12, 2024

Student Protest

Jon Keller at CBS Boston:

You've seen the crowds and heard the rhetoric. But what impact is all the campus turmoil over the war in Gaza having on public opinion?

Not much, according to Dritan Nesho, co-director of the nationwide Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS)/Harris poll, where monthly surveys have found "support for Israel has been fairly consistent." Among the striking findings of their April survey:

• While 59% think Muslim students face Islamophobia on campus, the 69% who see antisemitism there has come on strong. "That number wouldn't have been stratospherically high, and it is very high, even as recently as one year ago," said Nesho.
• Two-thirds of voters today believe that it's not safe to be openly Jewish on university campuses, and a huge majority favor suspension for students or teachers who call for violence against Jews, which is what many onlookers hear in common protestor chants. "The majority of the public, and the majority of voters, are not with the protestors," Nesho said.
• Among the 64% who believe there's a "problem" with what higher ed institutions are teaching students these days, 40 percent identified racially divisive theories, 34 percent cited a lack of political diversity, 33 percent deplored the promotion of anti-Americanism, and 27% cited teachings that promote antisemitism.

Even if they're isolated incidents, says Nesho, every time a protestor praises or excuses Hamas, it's a public relations disaster.

"Public opinion is pro-Israel, and public opinion is pro-Palestinian, but public opinion is anti-Hamas," he noted.

Remember the old Beatles song "Revolution"? There was a line in it: "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao/You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."

Campus Protest

Many posts have discussed deliberation, argument, and the value of viewpoint diversity.

Princeton President Theodore Eisgruber:

Confrontations at Columbia, Yale, and other campuses around the country have highlighted the importance of “time, place, and manner” regulations to universities’ academic and educational missions. Because the enforcement of these rules is essential to our community as well, I wanted to offer some observations about their role at Princeton and their relationship to other free speech principles.

Princeton’s free expression policy, like the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, protects a strikingly broad range of speech. It “guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.” It specifically protects even speech that “most members of the University community [deem] to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.”

Over the course of this academic year, we have seen again just how broad these rights are. In August and September, for example, I resisted calls to censor or condemn a controversial book that criticized Israel in harsh terms. In subsequent months, the University repeatedly protected the right to protest even when those protests included chants offensive to many members of the University — including to me personally.

Despite its breadth, Princeton’s free speech policy — again, like the First Amendment to the Constitution — contains exceptions. For example, it prohibits genuine threats and harassment. It also explicitly recognizes that “the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University.”

The University thus may, and indeed does, limit the times and places where protests can occur. It may, and indeed does, prohibit tactics, such as encampments or the occupation of buildings, that interfere with the scholarly and educational mission of the University or that increase safety risks to members of the University community.

These time, place, and manner regulations are viewpoint-neutral and content-neutral. They apply to any protest or event, regardless of which side they take or what issues they raise.

Time, place, and manner regulations are fully consistent with — indeed, they are necessary to — Princeton’s commitment to free speech. The purpose of our policy is “to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation,” not simply to maximize expression in all its forms, no matter how disruptive.

Dialogue, debate, and deliberation depend upon maintaining a campus that is free from intimidation, obstruction, risks to physical safety, or other impediments to the University’s scholarship, research, and teaching missions.

Princeton’s time, place, and manner regulations include a clear and explicit prohibition upon encampments. They provide that “camping in vehicles, tents, or other structures is not permitted on campus. Sleeping in outdoor space of any kind is prohibited.”

Encampments can obstruct others from moving freely or conducting University business. They can create health and safety risks. They require significant staff time to keep occupants and bystanders safe, thereby diverting people and resources from fulfilling their primary purpose. They can intimidate community members who must walk past them. There is no practical way to bar outsiders from joining the encampments.

As recent events vividly illustrate, encampments are also prone to become sites of confrontation. Columbia University moved classes online because of concerns about the safety of its students. At Yale University, a student reportedly had to seek medical attention after an altercation at an encampment.

At ordinary protests, our Free Expression Facilitators, in partnership with the Department of Public Safety, work assiduously to minimize or de-escalate confrontations before they become harmful; the 24-7 nature of encampments makes that assignment nearly impossible.

Our ability to discuss difficult, sensitive topics depends partly on the culture of our community. I am grateful to everyone who has helped Princeton to talk constructively about hard questions during this very challenging year.

Our success also depends on the consistent application of our policies protecting free speech. Princeton will continue to enforce those policies resolutely, including both this University’s expansive protections for the expression of controversial ideas and the time, place, and manner regulations that enable us to engage in thoughtful dialogue, debate, and deliberation about those ideas.

Online Antisemitism

Steven Lee Myers and Tiffany Hsu at NYT:

Jackson Hinkle has cultivated an online persona so incendiary that he has been kicked off YouTube, Twitch and Instagram.

He rages on undaunted, even energized. He produces a regular podcast on Rumble, a website popular with many prominent conservatives. He writes dozens of posts a day on X, where his following has surged to 2.5 million from 417,000 in the six months since Oct. 7 — the day Hamas fighters mounted their assault on Israel.

Along the way, he has employed false or misleading content, promoted manipulated images and made comments that watchdog organizations have denounced as antisemitic. He calls himself an American patriot even as he praises American adversaries, including Vladimir V. Putin, Xi Jinping and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

...

Two Israeli research companies that specialize in online threats, and that have focused on what they consider disinformation related to the war in Gaza, said they had identified coordinated and possibly state-sponsored networks of bots or inauthentic accounts that were amplifying Mr. Hinkle’s provocative brew of political views. China, Russia and other foreign actors are known to use such tactics to achieve their geopolitical goals — including efforts to influence this fall’s presidential election.

Mr. Hinkle has also benefited from changes by X’s owner, Elon Musk, including the cancellation of policies that once limited toxic content. With the addition of a premium subscription feature, he now charges certain followers $3 a month for what he calls “extra cool stuff,” including behind-the-scenes videos and “random thoughts.” X allows him to pocket up to 97 percent of the revenue — money that Mr. Hinkle has told subscribers helps him “continue exposing the Deep State.”

Imran Ahmed, the head of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a research organization, said Mr. Hinkle was part of “a sort of new cadre of people who exploit the algorithms’ insatiable desire for highly contentious content to benefit themselves economically.”

In a new report, the center documented a staggering rise in followers for 10 prominent accounts on X that spread antisemitic content since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Antisemitism and Youth

 Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Perhaps the most important trend on antisemitism comes from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and NORC. Starting in 1964 they have examined antisemitism using a multi-question battery based on 11 negative tropes about Jews.

In 2022, the ADL found a sharp uptick in antisemitic beliefs. Twenty percent of those surveyed believed in six or more of the tropes, up from 11 percent in 2019. Three percent in 2022 believed in all 11. Perhaps most significant (foretelling responses we see today), more young people believed in the six tropes than in any prior ADL research. This is a stark departure from the ADL’s 1992 findings when they noted that the “steady influx of younger more tolerant Americans had led to an overall decrease in antisemitism.”

In 2022, the ADL introduced an Israel Sentiment Index. They found that young people were significantly more anti-Israel than older adults on these questions. Twenty-one percent of them, compared to 11 percent of older people, agreed with five or more of the anti-Israel statements.

In the polls since October 7, there are areas where young and old do not differ. But there are many where they do. Take these results from a January polls of registered voters conducted by Mark Penn, the Harvard Center for American Political Studies, and Harris.

Majorities of all groups said Hamas killings could not be justified by Palestinian grievances. But there was an age gap. Fifty-four percent of the youngest group in the survey compared to more than 75 percent of those 45 years and older gave this response. Majorities of all age groups said they supported Israel more than Hamas, but there was a stark age difference. Fifty-seven percent 18-24 year olds compared to 80 percent of those 45 and over gave this response.

In another question, majorities of all age groups said Hamas would like to commit genocide against the Jews in Israel, but younger people were more likely than older ones to say this isn’t a goal of Hamas.

PR Fail: The Ivy Antisemitism Hearing

Hailey Fuchs and Michael Stratford at Politico:

The appearance of three elite university presidents on Capitol Hill this month to testify about campus antisemitism was a flamboyant debacle — prompting a national backlash and repercussions that forced at least one resignation and demands for more.

In certain circles of Washington and New York, the conversation is turning toward a less visible dimension of the controversy: Who got paid to give advice on one of the most disastrous public relations moments in modern memory?

The answer, in part, is that the university leaders were being advised by some of the most prominent legal and communications experts in the field of “crisis communications.” Now, the crisis communicators are in a PR crisis of their own: Rather than communicating, they are hunkering down in the storm. They’ve declined to comment publicly, even as critics say they share culpability for an episode that devastated the reputations of their clients.

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill is out of her job. MIT President Sally Kornbluth, meanwhile, has withstood calls for her firing. So has Harvard President Claudine Gay, though she’s been engulfed by a plagiarism scandal that has only intensified in the wake of the hearing.

The moment that quickly proliferated on social media from the five-hour hearing was questioning from Stefanik, in which the New York Republican asked the university leaders whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their universities’ codes of conduct. They each responded with qualified and conditional answers, telling Stefanik that it would depend on the context of the statements.

 High-profile Washington hearings that have the potential to become politically contentious usually involve some sort of mock hearing with the witnesses and their advisers. The team will plan for possible critical questions or lines of attack, and the witnesses may be hammered by people who they have not yet met. If they are available, former members of Congress — with experience in the hearing room — may ask the questions.

“The preparation and the result is tantamount to kind of political malpractice,” said a lobbyist in the higher education space, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “They did not do the things nor posture their response to what was [coming] for that hearing in any way to adequately prepare.”



Even amid the bipartisan momentum that had built earlier this year around banning TikTok, the chief executive officer of that social media app left Capitol Hill largely unscathed after his testimony before House lawmakers in March. A lobbyist with knowledge of those meeting preparations emphasized that the TikTok hearing lacked the same kind of breakthrough viral moment, “the definition of success, I think, when you are Daniel in a lion’s den.”

Holocaust Denial

 Nick Robertson at The Hill

A fifth of Americans ages 18-29 believe the Holocaust was a myth, according to a new poll from The Economist/YouGov. While the question only surveyed a small sample of about 200 people, it lends credence to concerns about rising antisemitism, especially among young people in the U.S. Another 30 percent of young people said they didn’t agree or disagree with the statement, while the remaining 47 percent disagreed. Only 7 percent of Americans overall believe the Holocaust is a myth, according to the poll.

 Congress and the White House have placed special attention on fighting antisemitism in recent weeks as the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza continues to divide public opinion. Leaders of top universities were grilled by a House committee this week on the topic, drawing criticism for vague answers on what comments constituted antisemitic harassment. About a third of Americans described antisemitism as a “very serious problem” in the poll, with just more than a quarter of young people saying the same. 

On Friday, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), introduced a bill to reauthorize the Never Again Education Act, providing federal funding for Holocaust education. “Failing to educate students about the gravity and scope of the Holocaust is a disservice to the memory of its victims and to our duty to prevent such atrocities in the future,” Rosen said in a statement. “At a time of rising antisemitism, reauthorizing the bipartisan Never Again Education Act will help ensure that educators have the resources needed to teach students about the Holocaust and help counter antisemitic bigotry and hate.”

From a 2018 survey by the Claims Conference

• Nearly one-third of all Americans (31 percent) and more than 4-in-10 Millennials (41 percent) believe that substantially less than 6 million Jews were killed (two million or fewer) during the Holocaust
• While there were over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust, almost half of Americans (45 percent) cannot name a single one – and this percentage is even higher amongst Millennials

 The survey asked an open-ended question: "From what you know or have heard, what was Auschwitz? 

......................................................All adults ..................Under 35

Concentration camp ........................40% ............................22% 

Death/extermination camp ..............23% ............................11% 

Forced labor camp ............................1% ...............................2% 

Other ................................................21% ............................31% 

Not sure ...........................................20% .............................35%

Schumer on Antisemitism

 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

While the dead bodies of Jewish Israelis were still warm, while hundreds of Jewish Israelis were being carried as hostages back to Hamas tunnels under Gaza, Jewish Americans were alarmed to see some of our fellow citizens characterize a brutal terrorist attack as justified because of the actions of the Israeli government. 

A vicious, bloodcurdling, premeditated massacre of innocent men, women, children, the elderly – justified! 

Even worse, in some cases, people even celebrated what happened, describing it as the deserved fate of quote “colonizers” and calling for quote “glory to the martyrs” who carried out these heinous attacks. 

Many of the people who have expressed these sentiments in America aren’t neo-Nazis, or card-carrying Klan members, or Islamist extremists. They are in many cases people that most liberal Jewish Americans felt previously were their ideological fellow travelers.

 Not long ago, many of us marched together for Black and Brown lives, we stood against anti-Asian hatred, we protested bigotry against the LGBTQ community, we fought for reproductive justice out of the recognition that injustice against one oppressed group is injustice against all. 

But apparently, in the eyes of some, that principle does not extend to the Jewish people.

The largely Ashkenazi survivors of decades of pogroms in Imperial Russia, the Holocaust under Nazi Germany, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; the Mizrahi, who were forcibly evicted from Arab countries, and their descendants; the many Sephardim who were scattered across the Mediterranean after they were expelled from Spain and Portugal in the late 1400s – do they not deserve the solidarity of those who advocate for the rights and dignity of the oppressed, given the long history of persecution of the Jewish people throughout the world? 

Many of those protesting Israeli policy note the at least 700,000 Palestinians displaced or forced from their homes in 1948, but they never mention the 600,000 Mizrahi Jews across the Arab world who were also displaced, whose property was confiscated, whose lives were threatened, who were expelled from their communities.

 

 

 

Antisemitism and Hate Crimes

October 16 release from ADL:

Hate crimes data released today by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows that reported hate crime incidents in 2022 rose to 11,634 incidents, the highest number ever recorded since the FBI started tracking such data in 1991. Reported single-bias anti-Jewish hate crime incidents in the country sharply rose by more than 37%, reaching 1,122 incidents, the highest number recorded in almost three decades and the second-highest number on record.

“Reported hate crime incidents across the country have once again reached record highs, with anti-Jewish hate crimes at a number not seen in decades,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “At a time when the Jewish community is already reeling in the wake of a terrorist attack that constituted the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust, the reality of this data is incredibly sobering. And yet, these numbers are not surprising. They are consistent with ADL’s own data and the trends we have been monitoring for years.”

According to the FBI data released today, a total of 14,631 law enforcement agencies, which represent only 77.5 percent of the agencies enrolled in the hate crime data collection program, participated in hate crimes reporting for 2022.
...

According to the FBI, the number of reported single-bias, anti-Jewish hate crimes rose from 817 in 2021 to 1,122 in 2022 and comprised more than half of all religion-based hate crimes in 2022, a trend that is consistent with data reported in prior years.
...

ADL, which keeps its own count of both criminal and non-criminal acts of hate against Jews, counted a total of 3,697 antisemitic incidents in 2022, the highest number on record since ADL began tracking such data in 1979. Assaults – considered the most serious incident type because it involves person-on-person physical violence – increased 26 percent in 2022.

Jews make up around 2 percent of the U.S. population. Yet, in 2022, according to the FBI data, reported antisemitic hate crime incidents accounted for 9.6 percent of all hate crimes.

Antisemitism on Campus

Recent posts have discussed the Hamas terror attack on Israel

Erwin Chemerinsky at The Los Angeles Times:

I am a 70-year-old Jewish man, but never in my life have I seen or felt the antisemitism of the last few weeks. I have heard antisemitic things from time to time through my life. I remember as a child being called a “dirty Jew,” and my friends and I being called “Christ killers” as we walked to Hebrew school. I recall a college girlfriend’s parents telling her that she should not go out with me because “Jews are different.” I had an incident in a class I was teaching about the ethics of negotiations, where a student matter of factly said, “the other side will try to Jew you down,” without the slightest sense of how that was a slur.

But none of this prepared me for the last few weeks. On Friday, someone in my school posted on Instagram a picture of me with the caption, “Erwin Chemerinsky has taken an indefinite sabbatical from Berkeley Law to join the I.D.F.” Two weeks ago, at a town hall, a student told me that what would make her feel safe in the law school would be “to get rid of the Zionists.” I have heard several times that I have been called “part of a Zionist conspiracy,” which echoes of antisemitic tropes that have been expressed for centuries.

I was stunned when students across the country, including mine, immediately celebrated the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7. Students for Justice in Palestine called the terror attack a “historic win” for the “Palestinian resistance.” A Columbia professor called the Hamas massacre “awesome” and a “stunning victory.” A Yale professor tweeted, “It’s been such an extraordinary day!” while calling Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state.” A Chicago art professor posted a note reading, “Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement…. May they all rot in hell.” A UC Davis professor tweeted, “Zionist journalists … have houses w addresses, kids in school,” adding “they can fear their bosses, but they should fear us more.” There are, sadly, countless other examples.

Defining Antisemitism

 The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has this working definition of antisemitism:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.” 

To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations: 

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits. 

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.

Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.

Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.

Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).

Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.

Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.

Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.

Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.

Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.

Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.

Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries).

 Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property – such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected because they are, or are perceived tobe, Jewish or linked to Jews.

 Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.

The Hamas Charter

The Hamas charter promises to obliterate Israel.

 Bruce Hoffman at The Atlantic:

The most relevant of the document’s 36 articles can be summarized as falling within four main themes:

1. The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia),
2. The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective,
3. The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and
4. The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories.

Thus, as fighting rages in Israel and Gaza, and may yet escalate and spread, pleas for moderation, restraint, negotiation, and the building of pathways to peace are destined to find no purchase with Hamas. The covenant makes clear that holy war, divinely ordained and scripturally sanctioned, is in Hamas’s DNA.

Israel’s Complete and Utter Destruction

The covenant opens with a message that precisely encapsulates Hamas’s master plan. Quoting Hassan al-Banna, the Egyptian founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a constituent member (Article 2), the document proclaims, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

Lest there be any doubt about Hamas’s sanguinary aims toward Israel and the Jewish people, the introduction goes on to explain:

This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious … It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps.

After some general explanatory language about Hamas’s religious foundation and noble intentions, the covenant comes to the Islamic Resistance Movement’s raison d’être: the slaughter of Jews. “The Day of Judgement will not come about,” it proclaims, “until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

Christian Nationalism: A Survey

 Many posts have discussed the role of religion in American life.  

 From the Public Religion Research Institute:

A major new national survey conducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution finds nearly two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants qualify as either Christian nationalism adherents (29%) or sympathizers (35%), and more than half of Republicans are classified as adherents (21%) or sympathizers (33%). This is a marked contrast from the 1 in 10 Americans as a whole who adhere to the tenets of Christian nationalism and the 19% who are sympathetic.

The report sheds light on the threat Christian nationalism poses to American democracy, reveals the drivers of support for this worldview, and explores how these beliefs intersect with other ideologies such as anti-Black racism, anti-immigrant views, antisemitism, anti-Muslim attitudes, and patriarchal gender roles.

“Christian nationalism is a new term for a worldview that has been with us since the founding of our country — the idea that America is destined to be a promised land for European Christians,” says Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., president and founder of PRRI. “While most Americans today embrace pluralism and reject this anti-democratic claim, majorities of white evangelical Protestants and Republicans remain animated by this vision of a white Christian America.”

To better understand the scope of the threat, PRRI and Brookings surveyed more than 6,000 Americans to create a new measurement of Christian nationalism. Respondents were categorized as Christian nationalism adherents, sympathizers, skeptics, or rejecters based on their responses to a battery of five questions about the role of Christians and Christian values in the United States.

Evangelical identity, church attendance strongly connected to Christian nationalism across racial lines

White evangelical Protestants are significantly more supportive of Christian nationalism than any other group. Nearly two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants qualify as either Christian nationalism adherents (29%) or sympathizers (35%). Notably, evangelical identity is positively correlated with holding Christian nationalist views across racial and ethnic lines. White (29%), Hispanic (25%), and Black (20%) Christians who identify as born-again or evangelical are each about five times as likely to be Christian nationalism adherents as members of the same racial or ethnic groups who identify as Christian but not evangelical (6% of white non-evangelicals, 4% of Black non-evangelicals, and 4% of Hispanic non-evangelicals).

At the other end of the spectrum, more than three-quarters of Hispanic Catholics, Jews, other non-Christian religious Americans (including Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and any other religion), and religiously unaffiliated Americans qualify as either Christian nationalism skeptics or rejecters.

Americans who lean toward supporting Christian nationalism are not, as some have theorized, Christian in name only. Christian nationalism adherents are nearly twice as likely as Americans overall to report attending religious services at least a few times a month (54% vs. 28%).

Link between Republican party affiliation and holding Christian nationalist views

While most Republicans qualify as either Christian nationalism adherents or sympathizers, at least three-quarters of both independents (46% skeptics and 29% rejecters) and Democrats (36% skeptics and 47% rejecters) lean toward rejecting Christian nationalism. Republicans (21%) are about four times as likely as Democrats (5%) or independents (6%) to be adherents of Christian nationalism.

Support for Donald Trump is also highly correlated with support for Christian nationalism. Less than a third of Americans hold a favorable view of the former president, yet more than 7 in 10 (71%) Christian nationalism adherents view him favorably.

Christian nationalism linked to appetite for political, personal violence and authoritarianism

Adherents of Christian nationalism are nearly seven times as likely as rejecters to agree that “true patriots might have to resort to violence to save our country” (40% vs. 16%). Among supporters of such political violence, 12% said they have personally threatened to use or actually used a gun, knife, or other weapon on someone in the last few years. Among all Christian nationalism adherents, 7% say they have threatened to use or actually used a weapon on someone, compared to just 2% of Christian nationalism rejecters.

Further, Christian nationalism supporters display significantly more fondness for authoritarianism. While only about 3 in 10 Americans (28%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what it takes to set thing right,” half of Christian nationalism adherents and nearly 4 in 10 sympathizers (38%) support the idea of an authoritarian leader.

Connections between Christian nationalism and other ideologies

Anti-Black racism, anti-immigrant views, antisemitic views, anti-Muslim views, and patriarchal views of gender roles are each positively associated with Christian nationalism.

• A majority of Christian nationalism adherents (57%) disagree that white supremacy is a major problem in the United States today, and 7 out of 10 reject the idea that past discrimination contributes to present-day hurdles for Black Americans.
• Seven in 10 (71%) Christian nationalism adherents embrace so-called “replacement theory,” the idea that immigrants are “invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
• Nearly a quarter of Christian nationalism adherents (23%) believe the stereotype that Jewish people in America hold too many positions of power, compared to just 9% of Christian nationalism rejecters. Christian nationalism adherents are more than three times as likely as rejecters to believe Jewish people are more loyal to Israel than America (44% vs. 13% respectively).
• Two-thirds (67%) of Christian nationalism adherents say we should prevent people from some majority Muslim countries from entering the United States, compared to only 29% of all Americans.
• Nearly 7 in 10 Christian nationalism adherents (69%) agree that the husband is the head of the household in “a truly Christian family,” and his wife submits to his leadership, compared to only 33% of all Americans.

The correlations between Christian nationalism and anti-Black racism, anti-immigrant views, and anti-Muslim views are significantly stronger among Christian nationalism adherents who identify as white, compared to those who are non-white.

The survey also contained a standalone statement about white Christian nationalism: “God intended America to be a new promised land where European Christians could create a society that could be an example to the rest of the world.” By a margin of two to one, Americans overall reject this assertion (30% agree, 67% disagree). More than 8 in 10 Christian nationalism adherents (83%) agree with this statement, as do two-thirds of Christian nationalism sympathizers (67%). By contrast, only 1 in 5 Christian nationalism skeptics (19%) and 3% of rejecters agree that America was selected by God as a promised land for white Christians.

Other key findings

• While more than a third of Americans report they haven’t heard of the term “Christian nationalism,” those who are familiar with it are more than twice as likely (44% vs. 20%) to view it negatively.
• Americans under age 50 are approximately twice as likely as older Americans to be Christian nationalism skeptics or rejecters.
• There are only modest differences in support for Christian nationalism by race or gender.
• Christian nationalism adherents overwhelmingly express a preference to live in a primarily Christian nation (77%, including 59% who believe this strongly). This preference to live in a predominately Christian nation is only shared by a quarter of Americans (27%).
• A unique embedded survey experiment revealed an estimated 17% of Americans agree with the experimental statement that “the United States is a white Christian nation, and I am willing to fight to keep it that way.”
• There is a strong positive correlation between Christian nationalism and QAnon beliefs, particularly among white Americans.
• In the wake of the Jan. 6 riot, Americans’ views of police diverge along partisan lines. Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to view their local police favorably compared to the U.S. Capitol Police (91% vs. 66%). Democrats, however, view local and Capitol police favorably in nearly equal measure (77% and 76% respectively).

Knowing About the Holocaust

From Pew:

Most U.S. adults know what the Holocaust was and approximately when it happened, but fewer than half can correctly answer multiple-choice questions about the number of Jews who were murdered or the way Adolf Hitler came to power, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

When asked to describe in their own words what the Holocaust was, more than eight-in-ten Americans mention the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people or other related topics, such as concentration or death camps, Hitler, or the Nazis. Seven-in-ten know that the Holocaust happened between 1930 and 1950. And close to two-thirds know that Nazi-created ghettos were parts of a city or town where Jews were forced to live.

Fewer than half of Americans (43%), however, know that Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany through a democratic political process. And a similar share (45%) know that approximately 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Nearly three-in-ten Americans say they are not sure how many Jews died during the Holocaust, while one-in-ten overestimate the death toll, and 15% say that 3 million or fewer Jews were killed.

Anti-Semitism

From the Anti-Defamation League:

Throughout each year, ADL’s (Anti-Defamation League) Center on Extremism tracks incidents of anti-Semitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States. Since 1979, we have published this information in an annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents.

• In 2018 ADL recorded 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States.
• 2018 included the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the U.S.: The massacre of 11 Jewish worshippers, and an additional two more injured, at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh by a white supremacist in October. The Pittsburgh attack was one of 39 reported physical assaults on Jewish individuals in 2018, a 105% increase over 2017. A total of 59 individuals were victims of assault, not including the police officers injured at the Tree of Life Synagogue.
• Of the 1,879 incidents in 2018, 1,066 were cases of harassment, an increase of 5% from 2017; and 774 were cases of vandalism, a decrease of 19% from 952 in 2017.
• In 2018, ADL recorded 249 anti-Semitic incidents attributed to known extremist groups or individuals inspired by extremist ideology. This represents 13% of the total number of incidents and is the highest level of anti-Semitic incidents with known connections to extremist individuals or groups since 2004. These incidents were the result of an anti-Semitic fliering campaign and of a series of robocalls perpetrated by a neo-Nazi. Nearly half of the incidents of harassment targeting Jewish institutions were the work of known white supremacists or extremists.
• K-12 schools, as well as colleges and universities, continue to be the scenes of significant numbers of anti-Semitic incidents. ADL recorded 344 incidents at K-12 non-Jewish schools in 2018 (down from 457 in 2017), and 201 incidents at colleges and universities (down from 204 in 2017).
• In 2018 there were 265 reported incidents at Jewish institutions such as synagogues, Jewish community centers and Jewish schools, a decrease of 23% from the previous year, but still markedly higher than the 170 incidents reported in 2016.
• ADL has tracked anti-Semitic incidents for the past four decades and in 2018 recorded the third-highest number of incidents. The total of 2018 incidents decreased by 5% from the 1,986 incidents ADL recorded in 2017. The 2018 total is 48% higher than the number of incidents in 2016 and 99% higher than in 2015.
• ADL has included a comprehensive set of policy recommendations for civil society, governmental and technology sector leaders to help them in the fight against the scourge of anti-Semitism, at the end of the report. These include recommendations aimed at assessing and combating the rise of online anti-Semitism, which is not tracked in this report other than with regard to specific reported instances of direct targeting, but which ADL has been analyzing in other reports.
• The complete dataset of anti-Semitic incidents for 2016-2018 is available on ADL’s H.E.A.T. Map, an interactive online tool that allows users to geographically chart anti-Semitic incidents and extremist activity nationally and regionally. Note that some details have been removed from the incident listings to ensure the privacy of victims.

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