THIS WEEK’S GLOBAL ANTI-SEMITISM REPORT
On Sunday, we have an opportunity to stand against anti-Semitism in France following the acquittal of the murderer of Sarah Halimi. Learn more and see how you can participate below. Let your voice be heard!
A minivan driver was arrested after an intentional hit-and-run that injured five orthodox Jews in Brooklyn – the latest incident in a spate of hate crimes that have targeted people who are visibly Jewish in New York City. In Northern Ireland, Jewish gravestones were desecrated and toppled.
A proposal for a new European super football league resulted in a wave of public anti-Semitism from fans. Just prior, Dutch soccer fans chanted “Hamas, Jews to the gas,” before a match against Ajax – a team known to have many Jewish supporters. Meanwhile, the European Union announced $2 billion in funding for its new comprehensive strategy to combat anti-Semitism among member states.
CAM’s global anti-Semitism report this week highlights 41 new media reports of anti-Semitic incidents – 19 incidents (46%) from the far-right, 9 incidents (22%) from the far-left, 7 incidents (17%) with Islamist motivations, and 6 incidents (15%) were unidentifiable.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SPECIAL FEATURE
AT NATIONAL INTERFAITH IFTAR, AMBASSADORS, MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, AND RELIGIOUS LEADERS URGE COMMUNITIES TO BUILD BRIDGES, TACKLE HATRED
By CAM
Ambassadors from across the world and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle were among the prominent participants in the National Interfaith Iftar event, issuing a strong call for communities to build bridges of friendship, join together and defeat anti-Semitism and hatred. In its second year, the event featured imams, rabbis, priests, and other religious leaders from the Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Zoroastrian, and Christian communities. Read Here
‘JERUSALEM OF GOLD’: AVIGAIL WINOKUR’S MOVING INTERFAITH IFTAR POEM
By CAM
At the Interfaith Iftar celebration hosted by the American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMWEC), in partnership with the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM), on Wednesday, Yeshiva University student Avigail Winokur recited a new poem, “Jerusalem of Gold,” that she wrote especially for the occasion. Read Here
DEMAND JUSTICE FOR MURDERED FRENCH JEW SARAH HALIMI
By CAM
Join with us and people of conscience from around the world and demonstrate your solidarity with the family of Sarah Halimi and the French Jewish community in the demand that Halimi’s anti-Semitic killer be held accountable for his crime. Read Here
UNITED STATES
PROSECUTORS: ALLEGED CAPITOL RIOTER, A NEO-NAZI SYMPATHIZER, A DANGER TO NJ JEWS
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
An alleged neo-Nazi sympathizer who is accused of storming the Capitol on January 6 is dangerous to Jews in his native New Jersey and should not be released from jail, prosecutors said. Timothy Hale-Cusanelli had asked to be released pending the outcome of his trial. “Defendant has demonstrated specific animosity towards the Jewish population and expressed a desire to commit violence against Jewish people,” federal prosecutors said. Read Here
MINIVAN DRIVER ARRESTED AFTER ‘HORRIFIC’ HIT-AND-RUN ASSAULT ON BROOKLYN HASIDIM
By Algemeiner Staff
New York police have arrested the driver responsible for a deliberate hit-and-run attack on five Brooklyn Hasidim. The minivan driver was caught on camera intentionally backing up into five pedestrians in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, striking the victims twice and initially lingering on the scene before ultimately speeding away. Read Here
JEWISH LAWMAKER IN OREGON TARGETED BY ‘HATEFUL ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK’
REGO PARK COMMUNITY LEADERS RALLY AGAINST HATE AFTER LATEST ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK
LONG ISLAND MAN INDICTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST JEWS, LGBTQ PEOPLE
SWASTIKA APPEARS ON SOUTH TONGASS HIGHWAY IN ALASKA
MAN ARRESTED FOR PAINTING HATE SYMBOLS AROUND FORT COLLINS, CO
WORLD NEWS
United Kingdom
PLAN FOR EUROPEAN SUPER LEAGUE TRIGGERS WAVE OF ANTI-SEMITIC ABUSE
By Jenni Frazer
The announcement of a proposed football European Super League has prompted an outpouring of anti-Semitic hate abuse on social media, in which Jews are blamed for “ruining football”. At the same time, Tottenham Hotspur chair Daniel Levy has been targeted with racial abuse after his club lost to Manchester United — and the club has reported the attack to the police and Twitter. Read Here
10 JEWISH GRAVES DAMAGED IN SUSPECTED HATE CRIME AT CEMETERY IN NORTHERN IRELAND
By CAM
A hate crime investigation has been launched by police in Belfast after ten Jewish gravestones were damaged by vandals in the Northern Irish capital. The incident, which police described as “appalling,” took place in the Jewish section of the City Cemetery in west Belfast. Pictures from the scene show a number of toppled and shattered gravestones. Read Here
GERMANY
OTHER WORLD NEWS
NETHERLANDS: DUTCH SOCCER FANS CHANT ‘HAMAS, JEWS TO THE GAS’ BEFORE MATCH AGAINST AJAX
By Cnaan Lipshiz
Fans of the Dutch soccer team Vitesse chanted “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” at a fan rally before a scheduled match against Ajax, an Amsterdam-based team known for its history of Jewish supporters. Police began examining footage from the action, which occurred in Arnhem, where Vitesse is based. The two clubs played Sunday, and Ajax won 2-1. Read Here
SPAIN: CONCERNS ABOUT RADICAL, ANTI-ZIONIST PARTIES AHEAD OF MADRID ELECTIONS
By Cnaan Liphsiz
Concerns are being raised about the possible ascent to power in the Spanish region of Madrid of far-left, anti-Zionist parties who have a history of ardent support for boycotting Israel and whose leaders have made troubling comments about Israel and the Holocaust. The regional elections for Madrid which has a population of 6.6 million people including between 15,000 to 17,000 Jews, are scheduled for May 4. Read Here
AUSTRALIA: AUCTION OF NAZI MEMORABILIA OWNED BY ADOLF HITLER SLAMMED AS ‘PERVERSE’ AND ‘TWISTED’
RUSSIA: A YOUNG MAN WAS ARRESTED FOR DESECRATING A MONUMENT TO HOLOCAUST VICTIMS IN PUSHKIN
SOUTH AFRICA: BDS ATTACK ON UNTERHALTER ‘DEFAMATORY AND SHAMEFUL’, SAYS SAJBD
DENMARK: A MAN HAS BEEN ARRESTED FOR VANDALIZED THE JEWISH CEMETERY IN AALBORG
ITALY: ANTI-SEMITIC GRAFFITI ON EZIO CRESPI PRIMARY SCHOOL WALL
FRANCE: DELIVERY MAN WHO REFUSED SERVICE TO FRENCH JEWS DEPORTED TO HIS NATIVE ALGERIA
CROATIA: REALITY SHOW REMOVES SCENES OF CONTESTANT WHO HAS NAZI SLOGAN TATTOO
THE MIDDLE EAST
HAMAS OFFICIAL MAHMOUD AL-ZAHAR: ARAB REGIMES SHOULD ASK WHY THE HOLOCAUST HAPPENED
By MEMRI
Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar asked whether the “Neo-Arab-Zionist” regimes consider the possibility that the Holocaust happened for good reason. Al-Zahar suggested that the “people who burned the Jews” did so because the Jews in those countries “took over the economy and politics and exploited the resources of these peoples for their own benefit.” Read Here
JAFFA YESHIVA RABBI ASSAULTED AFTER INQUIRING ABOUT APARTMENT; 2 ARRESTED
By TOI Staff
A rabbi was violently assaulted in Jaffa in an apparent hate crime while seeking to purchase an apartment to house his yeshiva. Two men in their 30s were arrested over the beating of Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, who runs the Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in the mixed Jewish-Arab city adjacent to Tel Aviv. Read Here
ON CAMPUS
AMERICAN WEBSITE REMOVES EVENT FEATURING TERRORIST LEILA KHALED
By Yossi Lempkowicz
Eventbrite, an American website for the organizations of events, has decided to remove an event featuring Leila Khaled, a member of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (FPLP), from its platform for violating its terms of service. The zoom webinar is being co-sponsored by San Francisco State University’s Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies (AMED), as well as the University of California Humanities Research Institute. Read Here
PRO-ISRAEL STUDENTS AT ARIZONA STATE FACE HARASSMENT AFTER BDS PULLED FROM VOTE
By Shiryn Ghermezian
Pro-Israel students at Arizona State University are facing harassment after a BDS resolution sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine was removed by the student government. SJP said students who support the resolution “don’t approve of ASU’s collaboration with these actions committed by the Israeli government” and accused Students Supporting Israel (SSI) of “spreading misinformation, gaslighting their audience and not addressing the concerns of our BDS resolution.” Read Here
ANALYSIS & OP-EDS
ON THE GRAY AREA: ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE LEXICON OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
By Amos Morris-Reich et Danny Trom
STUDIES & STATISTICS
ANTI-SEMITISM USED AS TOOL IN BALKAN DISPUTES: REPORT
By Milica Stojanovic
Anti-Semitic rhetoric is being used as a political tool in Balkan countries in regional disputes related to World War II and the 1990s wars, says a new report from the US-based International Republican Institute. The report, entitled ‘Antisemitic Discourse in the Western Balkans’, covers Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, and is based on human rights reports, interviews with relevant stakeholders and monitoring of selected online media. Read Here
NEW DATA: ANTI-SEMITISM INCIDENTS IN BERLIN SURGED BY NEARLY 20 PERCENT LAST YEAR AMID COVID PANDEMIC
By CAM
More than 1,000 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in Berlin in 2020, an almost 20-percent rise from the previous year, according to new data published this week by RIAS, an anti-Semitism monitoring group based in the German capital. A RIAS statement said nearly one in five of the 1,004 incidents were related to the Covid-19 pandemic through “the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy myths, perpetrator-victim reversals and Holocaust trivializations.” Read Here
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
22 SENATORS CALL ON BIDEN TO HASTEN ANTI-SEMITISM ENVOY NOMINATION
By Marc Rod
Twenty-two senators sent a bipartisan letter to President Joe Biden calling on him to “swiftly” nominate an ambassador to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. The letter, organized by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK), who lead the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Anti-Semitism, comes as Biden submitted his first round of ambassador nominees — all of them career foreign service officials — for Senate confirmation. Read Here
EU ANNOUNCES $2 BILLION ‘COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY’ TO COUNTER ANTI-SEMITISM AND INTOLERANCE
By Ben Cohen
A “comprehensive strategy” to combat anti-Semitism was unveiled by the European Union. The strategy “will provide a comprehensive framework to complement and support member states’ effort on preventing and combating anti-Semitism, educating on the Holocaust remembrance and fostering Jewish life in Europe.” The new program will receive nearly $2 billion in funding, making it “the biggest ever EU program for supporting fundamental rights inside the EU.” Read Here
FRENCH PRESIDENT SEEKS CHANGE TO LAW AFTER JEWISH WOMAN’S KILLER SPARED TRIAL
By TOI Staff
French President Emanuel Macron expressed support for the country’s Jewish community and its efforts to bring the killer of Sarah Halimi to trial, following a ruling by France’s highest court that Kobili Traore was not criminally responsible due to having smoked marijuana. And he said he would seek a change to laws to prevent such a case from happening again. Read Here
HUMANITY
SPANISH GROUP FIGHTING ANTI-SEMITISM LAUNCHES CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTI-SEMITIC PARTIES IN UPCOMING ELECTION
By Yossi Lempkowicz
Ahead of the regional elections in Madrid, ACOM, the leading organization in the fight against anti-Semitism in Spain, has called voters ‘’to voice their opposition to anti-Semitic far-Left parties Unidad Podemos and Mas Madrid, as well as to presidential candidate Pablo Iglesias.” Read Here
SUDAN’S ONLY JEWISH CEMETERY RESTORED: ‘I KEPT THINKING THAT THESE WERE PEOPLE’S FAMILIES, AUNTS, UNCLES, AND PARENTS’
By Algemeiner
“I kept thinking that these were people’s families, aunts, uncles and parents,” said Chaim Motzen of Sudan’s only Jewish cemetery, which he rediscovered and has successfully restored following decades of neglect and desecration. The cemetery is located in Khartoum, where there was once a small but thriving Jewish community mostly composed of Jews from Muslim countries. Read Here
The Combat Anti-Semitism Movement is a non-partisan, global grassroots movement of individuals and organizations, across all religions and faiths, united around the goal of ending anti-Semitism in all its forms. Since its launching in February 2019, 294 organizations and 299,000 individuals have joined the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement by signing the campaign’s pledge. The CAM Pledge draws upon the IHRA international definition of anti- Semitism and its list of specific behaviors used to discriminate against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel.
