Through August, CAM Tracks Daily Average of 5.19 Antisemitic Incidents in 2023

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The CAM Antisemitism Research Center tracked a total of 204 reports of antisemitic incidents worldwide in August 2023, marking a daily average of 6.58.

CAMโ€™s Monthly Antisemitism Report classifies incidents of Jew-hatred (including physical assault, verbal harassment, vandalism, and hate speech) by the ideologies of the perpetrators.

Overall, CAM has tracked 1,261 antisemitic incidents in the first eight months of 2023, an average of 5.19 incidents per day, compared to 1,371 incidents during the same period in 2022 (5.64 incidents per day). In all of 2022, CAM tallied an average of 5.3 antisemitic incidents daily.

Of August 2023โ€™s incidents, 60.29% (123) had far-right motives (compared to 53.0% of 2022โ€™s yearly total), while 15.66% (32) had Islamist motives (compared to 14.0% of 2022โ€™s yearly total) and 7.35% (15) had far-left motives (compared to 13.5 % of 2022โ€™s yearly total). The remainder — 16.67% (34) — had unidentifiable motives (compared to 19.5% of 2022โ€™s yearly total).

More than 60% of all August’s incidents involved hate speech (123 incidents), such as a publication in the state-owned Russian newspaper Pravda claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was sending Ukrainian troops to die as “payback” for pogroms in the country. In another incident, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler targeted the Jewish people for extermination because of โ€œtheir social role, and not their religion.โ€

Also in August, CAM monitored 20 physical threats against Jews, as well as 65 incidents of antisemitic vandalism. Incidents involving vandalism included a series of antisemitic defacements in the Florida Panhandle city of Pensacola and homophobic graffiti sprayed in front of the Jewish Resource Center at the University of Michigan.

New police-reported data for 2022 released by Statistics Canada showed that Jew continue to be the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in the country, despite comprising only one percent of the population.

In Germany, the CAM Antisemitism Research Center detected and monitored an uptick in incidents targeting Germanyโ€™s Jewish community starting in July, including acts of hateful speech and conduct, vandalism, and physical violence, with the motivations of the perpetrators spanning the ideological spectrum. According to the report on โ€œAntisemitic Incidents in Germany 2022โ€ from the Federal Association of Research and Information Centers on Antisemitism (RIAS), incidents classified as โ€œextremely violent” have been on the rise.

In the first half of 2023, Germanyโ€™s Federal Criminal Police Office tallied a total of 960 antisemitic crimes, with 25 acts of violence among them.

In an oped published on August 18 by The Messenger, CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa wrote that artificial intelligence, or AI, had “a significant role to play in countering antisemitism and all forms of online prejudice.”

“The cautious, ethical application of AI for content moderation and mapping out how hate speech is disseminated can contribute to a safer, more inclusive digital environment,” he noted. “AI developers, policymakers and society at-large have the moral responsibility to harness this potential effectively.”

There were three new adoptions of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism in August — by the City of Roeland Park, Kansas; Dutchess County, New York; and La Trobe University in Australia. There were three new adoptions of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism across the globe in August, including by Roeland Park, Kansas, and Duchess County, New York. In all of 2023, CAM’s Antisemitism Research Center has recorded 86 adoptions, for an overall all-time total of 1,208.

The full monthly report can be viewed here.

For more information on CAMโ€™s antisemitism incidents data, which is collected on a weekly basis, visit: combatantisemitism.org/research

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