THIS WEEK’S GLOBAL ANTI-SEMITISM REPORT
This week, the United States commemorated the third anniversary of the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh – the deadliest antisemitic attack in the nation’s history. U.S. President Biden vowed to combat antisemitism in honor of the victims saying, “We must always stand up and speak out against antisemitism with clarity and conviction, and rally against the forces of hate in all its forms…”
Meanwhile, the administration’s nominee for U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor & Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt condemned the progressive movement Sunrise DC’s boycott of liberal Jewish groups as “an overtly antisemitic act.” In New York, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations met with Secretary General António Guterres to encourage the UN to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
Three years on from the Pittsburgh attack, the dangers of far-right white supremacist Jew-hatred were all too apparent in Texas this week where Neo-Nazis twice hung public banners adjacent to a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Austin reading, “Vaxx the Jews.” The same group held a crude demonstration outside a San Antonio Jewish Community Center with banners that read “Honk if you know the Holocaust was fake.” Antisemitic flyers blaming Jews for the pandemic were also distributed to homes in a nearby neighborhood, and antisemitic vandalism was found outside an Austin-area high school, close to where the Neo-Nazi group hung their banners.
Jews in New York City experienced a several shocking antisemitic assaults. These high-profile incidents occurred amidst a new American Jewish Committee survey which showed that fear of antisemitism spurred 40% of American Jews to change their behavior over the past year.
In Germany, three attackers beat a man unconscious on a Berlin street for refusing to shout “Free Palestine.” In neighboring Austria, a Syrian refugee told a judge he doesn’t “hate all Jews, just those in Palestine,” while he was being sentenced for attacking an Austrian Jewish leader and vandalizing an Austrian synagogue.
Leading artists and thinkers from the Black and Jewish American communities came together for the inaugural event “Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future”. The unique gathering, hosted by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, was designed as a cultural celebration to bring the communities together and deliver a resounding message against racism and antisemitism.
This week’s global antisemitism report highlights 46 new antisemitic incidents reported by the media. The total includes 26 (56.5%) from the far-right, 6 (13.1%) from the far-left, 3 (6.5%) with Islamist motivations, and 11 (23.9%) unidentifiable in nature.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SPECIAL FEATURES
DAY ONE OF ‘SHAPING AN OMNI-AMERICAN FUTURE’ EVENT HIGHLIGHTS POWER OF CULTURE TO FIGHT RACISM AND ANTISEMITISM
Leading artists and thinkers from the Black and Jewish American communities came together for Day One of the inaugural “Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future”. The unique gathering was designed as a cultural celebration to bring the communities together and deliver a resounding message against racism and antisemitism, with an emphasis on the “Omni-American” ideals promoted by the late Black American thinker Albert Murray in his writings. The highlight of Day One’s events was the presentation of the first-annual Albert Murray Award for Omni-American Excellence to world-renowned musician, and composer Wynton Marsalis, who runs the Lincoln Center Jazz Program in New York City.
U.S. CONGRESSMAN RITCHIE TORRES HONORED AS INAUGURAL ‘SHAPING AN OMNI-AMERICAN FUTURE’ EVENT DRAWS TO A CLOSE
Leading artists and thinkers from the Black and Jewish American communities gathered for the second and final day of the inaugural “Combating Racism and Antisemitism Together: Shaping an Omni-American Future” conference. The highlight of Day Two was the presentation of the first-annual Omni-American Youth Leader Award to U.S. Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15).
UNITED IN MISSION OF DEFEATING ANTISEMITISM, CAM’S BROAD COALITION SEES RAPID PARTNER GROWTH
For the past two-and-a-half years, the Combat Antisemitism Movement has been hard at work building a broad coalition to fight contemporary Jew-hatred through innovative and collaborative action. Today, CAM has a strong interfaith, non-partisan coalition of 365 partners that is built for long-term success. In the last four months alone, CAM has added 36 new partners, including the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, Jazz Leadership Project, Jewish Future Pledge, Holocaust Survivor Day, and Jewish Life Television, among others.
RECENT INCIDENTS DRAW RENEWED ATTENTION TO IRELAND’S PERVASIVE ANTISEMITISM PROBLEM
A number of recent incidents have brought renewed attention to the troubling pervasiveness of antisemitism in Ireland, where Jew-hatred has permeated the center of society. Earlier this month, Catherine Connolly — the independent deputy speaker of the lower house (Dáil Éireann) of the Irish legislature (Oireachtas) — used the term “Jewish supremacy” in reference to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, drawing condemnation from leaders of Ireland’s long-established Jewish community, which numbers in the several thousands.
UNITED STATES
NEO-NAZIS HANG ‘VAX THE JEWS’ BANNER NEAR AUSTIN, TEXAS JCC, SYNAGOGUES
By SHIRA HANAU
Members of a neo-Nazi group hung a banner from a bridge in Austin, Texas, with the message “Vax the Jews”. The banner was put up by members of the Goyim Defense League. Photos on social media showed members of the group standing behind the banner making the Nazi salute. The banner was hung over the MoPac Expressway on the city’s west side, just a few blocks away from the Shalom Austin Jewish Community Center and several synagogues. The banner incident came just a few days after racist and antisemitic graffiti was discovered at Anderson High School, about a mile and a half away from the JCC.
NEO-NAZIS STAGE CRUDELY ANTISEMITIC DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER IN SAN ANTONIO
By Algemeiner Staff
Four days after they staged an antisemitic stunt at a highway overpass in Austin, Texas, the same crop of white supremacists appeared in San Antonio, where they staged a crudely antisemitic demonstration across the street from a Jewish community center. Under the eye of local police officers, supporters of the neo-Nazi “Goyim Defense League” flaunted banners carrying vulgar antisemitic slogans that denied the Holocaust, defamed Jewish religious practices and blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on a Jewish conspiracy. Wearing T-shirts decorated with Nazi swastikas, two of the group’s supporters held a banner reading “Honk if you know the Holocaust is fake.”
WORLD NEWS
United Kingdom
SYNAGOGUE’S SERVICE HIJACKED BY GROUP HOLDING UP SWASTIKA
By JOSH SALISBURY
Trolls hijacked a synagogue’s online service on Friday night holding up a swastika and racist images. The Shabbat service at Manchester Reform Synagogue – which was used as a filming location for the BBC’s Ridley Road – was disturbed by sick trolls shouting racist abuse during prayers. “Halfway through the service, during some prayers, they unmuted, started to shout, and put on the screen a swastika and some other awful racist images,” she told the BBC. “They were kicked out straight away but it was clear through the service that they were trying to get in.”
GERMANY
THREE ATTACKERS IN BERLIN BEAT MAN UNCONSCIOUS AFTER HE REFUSES TO SHOUT ‘FREE PALESTINE’
By Sharon Wrobel
A 36-year old man was brutally beaten up by a group of three attackers in Berlin after he allegedly refused to say “Free Palestine.” The victim was walking on a sidewalk when he was approached by three men who asked him to shout out something aloud. A police spokesperson confirmed that the 36-year old, a German citizen, was asked to say the slogan “Free Palestine.” When the victim resisted the demand, the three men cornered him, beat him up and kicked him, seriously injuring his head.
ANTISEMITIC GRAFFITI FOUND IN ROSTOCK
FRANCE
‘DIRTY JEWS OUT’: RESIDENTS OF PARIS NEIGHBORHOOD TARGETED WITH ANTISEMITIC HATE MAIL
By Algemeiner Staff
Residents of a heavily Jewish neighborhood in Paris have been targeted in separate incidents that involved antisemitic hate mail delivered to their homes. The incidents took place in Seine-Saint-Denis in the north-east of the French capital. Two Jewish families living next door to each other in the same apartment building received handwritten notes posted to their front doors bearing the message, scrawled in large black letters, “Dirty Jews Out.”
OTHER WORLD NEWS
SWEDISH EDUCATION AGENCY RECOMMENDS EXERCISE THAT HAS STUDENTS ARGUE THE HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
Sweden’s National Agency for Education recommended that teachers should make students try to prove that the Holocaust never happened, as part of a push to help them understand conspiracy theories. The recommendation came in a recently published handbook for high school teachers that the government’s institution in charge of scholastic issues had created. “Group 1 must find at least three arguments for the case that the Holocaust never happened, using facts and information from the internet. The handbook defined the Holocaust as a “controversial subject.”
‘I DON’T HATE ALL JEWS, ONLY THOSE IN PALESTINE,’ MAN CONVICTED BY AUSTRIAN COURT FOR ASSAULT ON JEWISH COMMUNAL LEADER DECLARES
By Algemeiner Staff
A 32-year-old man convicted by an Austrian court for an assault on a Jewish communal leader told the hearing: “I don’t hate all Jews — only those in Palestine.” The unnamed man, a Syrian refugee who arrived in Austria in 2013, was sentenced to three years in a secure facility for mentally unstable prisoners. On Aug. 22, 2020, he attacked Elie Rosen, the president of the Jewish community in Graz, outside the city’s synagogue with a wooden club. Rosen’s assailant was subsequently linked to at least six other crimes — including the defacing of the Graz synagogue with the slogan “Free Palestine.”
THE MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL’S DESTRUCTION IS INEVITABLE – A REPEATING PA PROMISE
By Nan Jacques Zilberdik and Itamar Marcus
The PA’s belief that Israel’s eventual destruction is guaranteed has been a repeating theme for decades. It was expressed again four times recently in official PA sources. The PA’s highest religious authority, Grand Mufti Muhammad Hussein, assured PA TV viewers that the destruction of Israel, the “liberation” of Jerusalem and its “return to Islam,” is only a matter of time.
ON CAMPUS
VA TECH GRADUATE STUDENT SENATE PASSES BDS RESOLUTION
By Aaron Bandler
The Virginia Tech (VT) Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) passed a resolution endorsing a boycott of Israel. The resolution called for a “boycott of all Israeli academic institutions complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and the denial of basic Palestinian rights” and to divest from “all institutional investments from companies that profit from the Israeli occupation and apartheid.” It also accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians when the Jewish State was founded in 1948 and continually perpetuating “colonial violence” against the Palestinians today.
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CONDEMNS ANTISEMITISM AFTER ‘JEWISH CONSPIRACY’ FLYERS FOUND ON CAMPUS
By Dion J. Pierre
University of Maryland president Darryll J. Pines strongly condemned the discovery of flyers promoting antisemitic conspiracies at fraternities and other off-campus houses. “These events mirror an alarming rise in hate-bias incidents targeting the Jewish community across the country and the globe,” Pines wrote in a statement, noting another recent incident of “anti-Jewish hate” displayed in a residence hall. The flyers included phrases like “Jews, international conspiracy, a disgrace,” “Communism: a Jewish conspiracy to grab the whole world,” and “Gov’t Jews Murder 20 million.”
ANALYSIS & OP-EDS
STUDIES & STATISTICS
ANTISEMITISM FEARS PROMPTED 4 IN 10 AMERICAN JEWS TO CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR LAST YEAR: AJC SURVEY
By PHILISSA CRAMER
Fear of antisemitism spurred 40% of American Jews to change their behavior over the past year, according to a new survey. The survey is the latest in an annual series by the American Jewish Committee to understand how Jewish Americans and the general public experience and perceive antisemitism. A companion survey of the general public found that the proportion of Americans who say they understand what antisemitism is rose sharply, from 53% in 2020 to 65% this year. 91% said they believed the far right poses at least some threat. In a shift, however, the proportion of American Jews who said they thought “the extreme political left” represents at least a slight antisemitic threat increased sharply, from 61% last year to 71% this year.
NEW STUDY FROM HILLEL AND ADL FINDS A THIRD OF STUDENTS ON CAMPUS EXPERIENCED ANTISEMITISM IN LAST YEAR
By PHILISSA CRAMER
A third of US Jewish college students say they have personally experienced antisemitism in the last year, according to a new survey conducted jointly by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League. They suggest that the majority of Jewish students at American colleges feel safe and supported on campus — but that a significant minority have experienced antisemitism or obscured their Jewish identity out of fear of antisemitism. Fifteen percent of students who responded to the survey said they had “felt the need to hide” their Jewish identity and 6% said they had felt unwelcome in a campus organization because they were Jewish.
FIGHTING ONLINE ANTISEMITISM (FOA) REPORT: ONLY 12% OF ANTISEMITIC POSTS ON SOCIAL NETWORKS REMOVED
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
BIDEN VOWS TO COMBAT ANTISEMITISM IN HONOR OF SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING VICTIMS
By Jacob Magid
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said that their administration is working to honor the memories of the victims of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting by recommitting to their efforts to combat antisemitism. “We must always stand up and speak out against antisemitism with clarity and conviction, and rally against the forces of hate in all its forms, because silence is complicity,” Biden said in a lengthy statement marking three years since the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history. “That day and those that followed remind all of us to embrace the better angels of our nature – and to turn pain into purpose,” Biden said. “We must recognize in others our shared humanity and strive to summon unexpected faith in unanticipated moments — in the hope that we might heal and rebuild.
LIPSTADT: SUNRISE DC MOVE TO BOYCOTT JEWISH GROUPS AN ‘OVERTLY ANTISEMITIC ACT’
By Marc Rod
Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s nominee to be the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, discussed her nomination, the recent antisemitism controversy involving the Sunrise Movement’s D.C. chapter and her approach to and concerns about modern antisemitism. Lipstadt addressed a recent statement from the D.C. chapter of the climate activist organization Sunrise Movement, in which the group announced it would not collaborate on voting rights issues with pro-Israel Jewish groups. “It was an overtly antisemitic act,” Lipstadt said. “If you support the existence of the state of Israel according to this, then you are a racist… What it is saying is that, ‘You Jews, as a people, you do not have a right to a national identity.’”
POLISH INDEPENDENCE MARCH BANNED BY COURT OVER FAR-RIGHT VIOLENCE
HUMANITY
MILA KUNIS, NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, HELEN MIRREN AND OVER 200 OTHER CELEBRITIES SIGN LETTER DENOUNCING CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL
By SHIRA HANAU
More than 200 celebrities, including actors Mila Kunis, Billy Porter, Neil Patrick Harris and Helen Mirren, signed an open letter opposing efforts to boycott an LGBTQ film festival in Tel Aviv. The letter is a response to calls from activists with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to boycott the Tel Aviv International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, also called TLVFest, an annual film festival showcasing LGBTQ films. It was organized by Creative Community for Peace, an organization of entertainment industry professionals that works to counter cultural boycotts against Israel.
ISRAELI, AMERICAN AND AFRICAN STARS COME TOGETHER TO RAISE AWARENESS OF INCREASING ANTISEMITISM
By YOSSI LEMPKOWICZ
Grammy-winning American Christian stars joined some of the biggest names in Israeli music to record “The Blessing Israel”, a song based on well-known biblical verses, sung in Hebrew and English, as a show of solidarity and to raise awareness about the increase of antisemitism around the world. Israeli media has compared it to ‘We are the world’, a song released in the 80s featuring some of the biggest stars around the world, singing together for a good cause. The song also has backing vocals featuring students from Passages, an organization that brings American Christian students to Israel.
JEWISH ON CAMPUS TO PARTNER WITH WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS
The Combat Antisemitism Movement is a non-partisan, global grassroots movement of individuals and organizations, across all religions and faiths, united around the goal of ending antisemitism in all its forms. Since its launching in February 2019, 360 organizations and 355,000 individuals have joined the Combat Antisemitism Movement by signing the campaign’s pledge. The CAM Pledge draws upon the IHRA international definition of antisemitism and its list of specific behaviors used to discriminate against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel.
