Antisemitism Entered Mainstream of Political Discourse Around World in July, CAM Report Finds

The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) tracked a total of 132 media reports of antisemitic incidents worldwide in July 2021, a 25% decrease from June. 

CAM’s Monthly Antisemitism Report — the latest edition of which can be viewed in full by clicking on the image below — classifies incidents of Jew-hatred (including physical assault, verbal harassment, vandalism, and hate speech) by the ideologies of the perpetrators.

Of July’s incidents, 38% (50) had far-right motives, while 26% (34) had far-left motives, and 18% (24) had Islamist motives. The remainder — 18% (24 incidents) — had unidentifiable motives.

In Washington, D.C., a large swastika was found inside the U.S. State Department headquarters, near the Office to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, and in Baltimore, Maryland, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized with Nazi graffiti.

In Brooklyn, New York, an identifiably Jewish man was physically attacked and robbed by two assailants while on his way to synagogue, and in Toronto, Canada, a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke was physically attacked while walking his dog by an assailant yelling “F*** you, you Jews, you’ll never take Israel — free Palestine!”

In London, England, several Jews were threatened with violence and verbally harassed in the streets, on separate occasions, and in Rotterdam, Netherlands, a top Dutch soccer player was targeted with a grotesque Nazi mural, depicting him in antisemitic caricature as a concentration camp inmate.

July saw a troubling trend of high-impact events in which Jew-hatred was mainstreamed across civil society. For example, the Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company, owned by British conglomerate Unilever, caved to pressure from the antisemitic BDS movement and announced it would end sales of its products in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

There are many disputed territories in the world, yet Ben &  Jerry’s chose to single out Israel over its presence in Judea and Samaria, the biblical homeland of the Jewish people, marking a clear violation of the “double standards” criterion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. 

Also, as the Covid-19 pandemic continues, with the Delta variant spreading widely, more and more occurrences of Holocaust distortion, a growing antisemitic phenomenon, took place. Increasingly, disturbing Holocaust imagery and rhetoric are being used to protest government health measures and regulations, and this was evident in countries such as France and Italy in July.

In July, there was one adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism — by the Community of Sant’Egidio, a lay Catholic association dedicated to social service, with an estimated 50,000 members and network communities in 73 countries. This marked the first time an international Catholic movement has endorsed the definition.

For more information on CAM’s antisemitism incidents data, which is collected on a weekly basis, visit: combatantisemitism.org/newsletters