Read below the in-depth feature about the Jewish pride flag being banned at the DC Dyke March. Your opinion matters. Please let us know your reaction to DC Dyke March controversy.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio dismissed the suggestion that the left has played any role in the rise of anti-Semitism, calling the issue a distinctly “right-wing movement.” “I think the ideological movement that is anti-Semitic is the right-wing movement,” the 2020 presidential candidate said. “I want to be very, very clear, the violent threat, the threat that is ideological, is very much from the right,” he added. De Blasio also rejected the notion that there has been any rising anti-Semitism on the left with regard to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Read Here.

An armed white nationalist neo-Nazi group marched, with a police escort, in protest during Detroit’s Pride parade this weekend. During the event, members of NSM were seen tearing up a pride flag while one man was photographed as he appeared to urinate on an Israeli flag. Read Here.

A speaker at an anti-Israel protest in Dearborn, Michigan called Israel a “cancer” and dubbed the US government “Satanic.” He also said US presidents were “criminals and terrorists and called for the liberation of Palestine, for “returning every inch, every centimeter, every pebble,” and asserted that “Israel is crumbling — less than 25 years to go, according to the calculations of our beloved Leader Imam Khamenei,” referencing Iran’s supreme leader. He praised Hamas and Hezbollah for “resisting” Israel. Read Here.

“As a sign of solidarity, at this time of crisis for the Jewish people, I’m going to be doing another trip to Israel as a trip in solidarity right after the legislative session, and I invite my Jewish colleagues to join us as a sign of solidarity,” he told reporters prior to marching in the annual ‘Celebrate Israel’ parade in Manhattan. “New York stands with Israel. We are all Jewish today. We all appreciate the Jewish community. They are part of what makes New York, New York—and one of the best parts.” Read Here.

The resolutions dealt with a variety of issues related to anti-Semitism, Israel, Palestine and American involvement in the region. One included original language that required the Democratic Party to oppose “all efforts to stigmatize and suppress support for Palestinian human rights by falsely conflating it with anti-Semitism.” Another demanded a Palestinian “right of return.” Two resolutions supported returning the Golan Heights to Syria. Read Here.

An Arkansas law prohibiting the state from contracting with entities that boycott Israel does not violate the First Amendment, but rather protects taxpayers from funding “discriminatory conduct,” the office of the state’s attorney general argued. The defense followed an appeal issued by the ACLU on behalf of the Arkansas Times newspaper, which claimed it “lost numerous government advertising contracts” after it refused to certify that it is not engaged in a boycott of Israel. Read Here.

The caucus, launched after an AJC-convened meeting in January, will work to bring blacks and Jews together to back hate crimes legislation and combat white supremacist ideology and actions. The members are Reps. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., Will Hurd, R-Texas, Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich. and John Lewis, D-Ga., a revered veteran of the 1960s civil rights marches. Read Here.

Residents of San Francisco that live on the same street as a Holocaust memorial received anti-Semitic hate mail including a reading list of Holocaust denial titles. “It is hoped that you will all buy some of these books in this list and that you will realize that the Holocaust is a complete lie.” The letter was signed by the Barnes Review, a magazine by Willis Carto’s Liberty Lobby [which] according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is “one of the most virulent anti-Semitic organizations around…” Read Here.

A note reading “Hitler is coming” was found on a billboard designed for comments by visitors to the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum. Police said they were investigating the note as a hate crime. Visitors alerted police to the anti-Semitic note at the Crown Heights museum. The city’s hate-crime task force took over the investigation, authorities said. Read Here.

Peabody, MA called out hate and anti-Semitism with a City Hall rally that drew more than 350…Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders stood shoulder to shoulder with city councilors, school committee members, and school officials…to stand in solidarity with Rabbi Nechemia Schusterman of Chabad of Peabody and Rabbi Sruli Baron of Tobin Bridge Chabad who were verbally accosted with anti-Semitic insults by the lead driver in a row of three or four pickups…Schusterman took to Facebook to describe what happened, including saying the driver hurled expletives and threw a penny at them. Read Here.

A California man who wrote “kill lists” of prominent Jews pleaded guilty to threatening three houses of worship in Orange County. Nicholas Wesley Rose, 28, of Irvine, was sentenced Friday for carrying a loaded firearm not registered to him and three civil rights counts in relation to making the threats. Read Here.

In response to the uptick of hate crimes, the NYPD is launching a new special unit to tackle these specific crimes. The unit will be tasked with community outreach and investigating reports of bias crimes throughout the city. The number of hateful incidents across the city have increased, particularly anti-Semitic ones. According to NYPD May statistics, hate crimes saw a year-over-year increase of 64 percent…90 percent are considered anti-Semitic. Read Here.

YouTube announced it is to remove material that denies the Holocaust or glorifies Nazism. The move, announced on YouTube’s official blog, marks a new stage in the battle against hate speech, the company said. This latest stage aims at prohibiting videos that allege that a “particular group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.” Read Here.

Watch in the video below how, according to the IDF, Hezbollah dug and built several tunnels to attack Jews in Israel. This tunnel was found in late January and constitutes the largest construction of its kind. The army said the tunnel was dug 22 stories deep and more than a kilometer long. It was built south of the Lebanese village of Ramiyah and extended 77 meters into Israeli territory.

Sarit Zehavi Alma’s CEO on her first visit to a Hezbollah cross border attack tunnel!
We would like to thank @IDFSpokesperson and @MediaCentralJer for the fascinating experience! pic.twitter.com/2ygWnXjoLW

— Israel-Alma (@SaritZehaviALMA) June 12, 2019

Hezbollah is an anti-Semitic and internationally designated terrorist organization that has attacked Jewish civilian targets across the world while regularly espousing and teaching anti-Semitic ideology to its followers. Hezbollah is primarily backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and seeks the annihilation of the Jewish State.

A rabbi in Rosario, the third most populous city in Argentina, was verbally and physically attacked in violence characterized as anti-Semitic. Rabbi Shlomo Tawil, co-director of the local Chabad-Lubavitch organization, was attacked by three men [who] shouted anti-Semitic epithets before removing the rabbi’s hat and trampling it on the ground, then beating the rabbi…The attack was stopped when a passerby intervened. Read Here.

AUSTRALIA has been admitted to full membership of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) following a unanimous vote of the plenary in Luxembourg. “Now that Australia is a full member, with a seat at the table, we are able to fully participate in IHRA’s efforts to formulate policies, plans and programs advancing Holocaust education, commemoration and research,” the Australian delegation to IHRA said in a statement. Read Here.

Argentina’s ambassador to Haiti glorified the Nazis in a tweet in which he saluted his country’s military on its National Army Day, angering Jewish institutions and a national lawmaker. Ambassador Pedro Von Eyken saluted Argentina’s national army on in a tweet which read: “Today is the Day of the Argentine Army, that of General José de San Martín and many others who gave it glory and honor. Created more than 200 years ago, it had many more illustrious moments than controversial ones. As the son of a German officer of World War II, I salute the Army on its day.” Read Here.

Lithuanian soldiers and officials attended the unveiling of a plaque honoring the late chaplain of what Nazi hunters say was a local unit of Holocaust-era murderers of Jews. The municipality of Vitkija hosted the unveiling of the plaque for Zenonas Ignatavičius, who was born in that town and served in 1941 in the 12th Lithuanian Auxiliary Police Battalion [which was] responsible for the murder of more than 15,000 Jews in Belarus, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Read Here.

The widow of a rabbi murdered in the West Bank warned French lawmakers that money given by Paris to the Palestinian Authority could be used to pay stipends for terrorists. Check how your money is spent. Demand it does not pay for murder,” French-born Yael Shevah, whose 35-year-old husband Raziel was killed in a drive-by shooting in January 2018, told a Paris conference on Israel. The conference discussed ways to counter the increasing delegitimization of Israel and Jews in French society. “[The] killer told the judge that my husband was chosen for his Jewish appearance.” Read Here.

The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Williams College over concerns that it violated antidiscrimination law when the student government refused to recognize a pro-Israel student group. In a May 31 letter, the Office for Civil Rights’ Boston office said it had accepted a complaint alleging the College Council violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits “discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.” Read Here.

Fiercely anti-Zionist students have become a fixture on American college campuses. They depend on professors for their doctrine, and the professors are spreading disinformation, as Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) between 2006 and 2012, shows in his valuable new book, Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign Against the Jewish State. Nelson’s argument is simple: If you want to single out Israel as uniquely worthy of condemnation among the nations of the earth, you have to sign on to a series of lies. Read Here.

Pro-Palestine activists have been conducting a ‘campaign of intimidation’ against Jewish shops that sell products from Israel. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is supported by Corbyn, has forced two Jewish businesses to close and activists have threatened others. Other groups targeted Nissan Ayalon, a British Jewish shopkeeper in Ireland and Scotland, forcing him to relocate three times and eventually flee Britain.” Read Here.

The film, Hounded (right), draws attention to the harassment of Nissan Ayalon, who fled the country with his family after he was hounded for five years by the Scottish PSC. Watch Nissan’s story.

The alliance that needs to happen between American Jews and Israel needs to be an alliance with the Israeli center. American Jews have not yet caught on to the deep transformation of Israeli politics. We are no longer divided between right and left. We are divided between right and center. For all practical purposes, there is no Israeli left anymore. The Israeli left exists most strongly among American Jews. Read Here.

At AJC Global Forum 2019 in Washington, D.C., Halie Soifer, Executive Director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and Matt Brooks, Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, provide passionate arguments for why their respective parties can serve as a political home for American Jews.

The American Jewish Committee released its first-ever concurrent surveys of the attitudes of Jews in France, Israel, and the United States, the three largest Jewish communities in the world. “Some commonalities among American, French, and Israeli Jewry, comprising the great majority of world Jewry, are strikingly encouraging,” said AJC CEO David Harris. “At the same time, there are clear differences among and within these three Jewish communities about key current issues of Jewish concern and about the challenges they are likely to face in coming years.” Read Here.

As previously reported, Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, produced a report recently on anti-Semitism among Islamists in Germany. The report below has been translated from German to English by the Hudson Institute.

“Due to Germany’s historical experience with Nazism, anti-Semitic behavior has long been associated with right-wing extremism. It was not until the turn of the century that awareness emerged that anti-Semitism is not just a characteristic unique to the far-right milieu…one also sees indications of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism on the far-left. In Islamism, however, anti-Semitic views are more pronounced. Religious, territorial, and/or political motives are bound together in an anti-Semitic view of the world. The view of “the Jew as the enemy” forms a central pillar in the thinking underlying all Islamist factions. Recognizing this becomes particularly important when considered against the backdrop of the influx of more than 1 million Muslims into the Federal Republic of Germany from 2014 to 2017.”

Read the Full BfV Report Here.

The National Survey of Anti-Semitism in America was conducted among likely voters in the 2020 elections to gauge opinions on anti-Semitism in the U.S. The survey reveals how voters of different regions, political views, religious affiliations, races, genders, and ages view anti-Semitism in America, the Democratic party, remarks by Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Israel, and other consequential issues. View the Results of the National Survey Here.

Zioness, an organization which uses Zionism to motivate commitment to social action…arranged to gather before the DC Dyke March after hearing about the policy early last week. “…We wanted to make sure that Jews who wanted to participate and fly the Jewish pride flag and wear Jewish symbols wouldn’t walk in alone. We find solidarity in numbers.”

At the meetup, Ann Lewis, a Zioness board member, described her shock when hearing about the policy. “I was stunned,” she said…Lewis also explained Zioness’s motivation to plan the meetup. “The answer is show up. Show up with all your values, show up with all your identities, show up and say I am proud of who I am and what I stand for.” Read Here.

The Zioness Movement is a coalition of activists and allies who express their Zionist and progressive values through collective action. They are driven by the belief that the same values of human rights and self-determination at the heart of progressive causes also underlie Zionism, the movement to achieve self-determination for a long-oppressed minority group.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told a group of British Jewish leaders that Washington would “push back” against UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and do its “level best” to keep him from taking any steps that would make life difficult for Jews in the United Kingdom. Pompeo was asked: If Corbyn is elected “would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the UK?” Pompeo responded: “It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best.” Read More.

Secretary of State Pompeo said that he hasn’t seen “any material progress” by European countries to recognize Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization. “The American position is very clear,” Pompeo told American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris in a recorded video played at the AJC Global Forum. “It is a unitarian entity. It is a terrorist organization. It is underwritten by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and it, in its entirety, must be designated as a terrorist entity.” Germany, like the European Union, only considers Hezbollah’s so-called military wing a terrorist organization and following Pompeo’s remarks, Germany’s parliament rejected a resolution that would have labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization in its entirety. Read More.

This edition of the biweekly AJC Live radio show focused on the role that the U.S. State Department plays in combating anti-Semitism around the world. Elan Carr, the State Department Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism was interviewed by AJC Westchester/Fairfield Director Scott Richman about anti-Semitism today, Special Envoy Carr’s efforts to combat it, and his background. Listen Here.

Last week Elan Carr spoke to the ADL National Leadership Summit about the sickness of anti-Semitism. In his remarks the Special Envoy spoke of his bilateral trips to Eastern Europe, participating in the US delegation to March of the Living, and most poignantly:
“…The fastest growing kind of anti-Semitism – the anti-Semitism that clothes itself in anti-Zionism and Israel hatred – it is no less dangerous than the other forms of anti-Semitism – in my line of work Jew hatred is Jew hatred. This is often called the new anti-Semitism – there’s nothing new about it. It’s the same old anti-Semitism rebranded and repackaged. This kind of anti-Semitism is working…”

Watch the full video below:

At AJC Global Forum 2019, a panel discussion of government leaders discussed whether enough is being done to combat growing anti-Semitism. This conversation, moderated by AJC Europe Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, featured Elan Carr, the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Special Envoy Carr speaks about his role combatting anti-Semitism as a matter of foreign policy. Watch the full video below:

America is facing a shocking spike in anti-Semitism and, in addition to traditional sources on the extreme right, this time it includes left-wing progressives and Islamists. In parts of Europe over the past decade or two this new anti-Semitism, as well as the violent old anti-Semitism of neo-Nazi groups, has become entrenched in the mainstream. Is America following in Europe’s footsteps? What can be done to halt this? Read Here.

In the video below, Elan Carr describes a sense of urgency in recent meetings with European allies. “They’re standing up and fighting, not as a favor to Jews, but because they understand that anti-Semitism is a vile poison” and “history’s greatest barometer of human suffering.” Towards the end of his remarks, Carr described meeting with a lifelong Labour Party member who left the party over anti-Semitism. “She said, ‘It all started on the campuses, and we did nothing because they were students. We did nothing when they joined the party because it was just the left-wing fringe, and now they’ve taken over my party, and it’s not mine anymore.’ What’s going on is a battle for the future not just for the Jewish people but also for the United States.”

Uwe Becker, commissioner of the Hessian federal state government for Jewish life and the fight against anti-Semitism, has blasted Berlin’s Jewish Museum for stoking an anti-Semitic boycott of the Jewish state. In a written statement to The Jerusalem Post, Becker said on Sunday that “The Jewish Museum in Berlin obviously sees as its task to take a stand against Jewish life in our country and especially against Israel. The recent support for BDS is a disgrace! After a total single-sided exhibition about Jerusalem now another scandal. This is not a Jewish but an anti-Jewish Museum.” Read Here.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and Congressman Eliot Engel was honored by the Met Council at the organization’s Jewish Poverty Annual Legislative Breakfast, receiving the “Fighting Hate and Anti-semitism Award. “I am so honored to receive the Fighting Hate and Anti-Semitism Award from the Met Council on Jewish Poverty,” Engel said. “As Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the House Anti-Semitism Task Force, combating hate and anti-Semitism remains a huge priority of mine, especially in these trying times. The rise in anti-Semitism cannot be ignored or swept under the rug…” Read Here.

Volkswagen is joining with the Anti-Defamation League to fund a Berlin-based office that will research and combat anti-Semitism in Europe. “The initiative will focus on assessing the root causes of anti-Semitism, extremism, and bigotry in society and develop programs to counter it through advocacy and education,” ADL said. Herbert Diess, CEO of Volkswagen Group, the largest car manufacturer in the world, announced the bid at the ADL’s annual Washington conference. In an interview with JTA, he said he was concerned about the recent spike in anti-Semitism in Europe, and that Volkswagen had a special obligation to combat racism because of its origins in Nazi Germany. Read Here.

A talk by a Holocaust survivor that Claire Sarnowski attended when she was in fourth grade altered her life. Claire, who’s now a 14-year-old high school freshman in Lake Oswego, Oregon, has recently succeeded in lobbying lawmakers to mandate Holocaust education in Oregon schools – making sure that a new generation of students grows up knowing about the horrors and lessons of the Holocaust. Even though she’s not Jewish, Claire has made promoting Holocaust education her mission, dedicating countless hours to this cause. Read Here.

The Organization of American States will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of anti-Semitism, the group’s head said. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s announcement Tuesday in Washington makes him the first Latin American leader to do so. He also called Hezbollah “a terrorist organization” as he accepted the Champion of Democracy Award from the American Jewish Committee on the last day of its annual Global Forum Read Here.

In this episode of AJC Passport, two members of Congress from Florida, Representative Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Representative Brian Mast (R-FL), discuss the importance of pro-Israel support on both sides of the aisle and the need to confront the threat of anti-Semitism in America. Both congressmen are members of the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combatting Anti-Semitism. Listen Here.

There is an urgent need for American attention to anti-Semitism at home and abroad, and the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism is primed for impact. You can urge your Representative to join this timely and essential caucus by going to www.ajc.org/taskforce and filling out an easy form to send a letter to your member of congress.

The Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism — started in 2015 by Representatives Nita Lowey (D-NY), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Eliot Engel (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Marc Veasey (D-TX), Kay Granger (R-TX), Ted Deutch (D-FL), and Peter Roskam (R-IL) — works with government officials and diplomatic contacts to craft policies aimed at protecting Jewish communities, monitor anti-Semitic incidents, prevent radicalized young people from turning to terrorism, and educate against anti-Semitism.