Violent attacks against US Jews doubled in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s yearly audit of anti-Semitic incidents.
Yet the report, published days after a synagogue shooting in Poway, California, that killed one woman and injured three other people, shows that despite the grim spike in violence against Jews, physical assaults remained relatively rare. Anti-Semitic harassment and vandalism are far more common.
Overall, the ADL counted 1,879 incidents of anti-Semitic assault, harassment and vandalism in the United States in 2018, down five per cent from the 1,986 incidents ADL recorded in 2017, but still the third-highest year on record since the ADL began tracking such data in the 1970s.
The dramatic jump in violent assaults appeared the most worrying. It included the massacre of 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest attack on Jews in the history of the US.
In all, 59 Jews were physically assaulted because of their religion in 2018, up from 21 in 2017. By comparison, there were 1,066 cases of harassment, an increase of five per cent from 2017; and 774 cases of vandalism, a decrease of 19 per cent from 2017.
“We’ve worked hard to push back against anti-Semitism, and succeeded in improving hate crime laws, and yet we continue to experience an alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO, said in a statement.
Only 13 per cent of the 1,879 incidents in 2018 – or 249 – were attributed to extremist groups such as white supremacists or Neo-Nazis. The report cites two groups in particular: Daily Stormer Book Clubs and Loyal White Knights (one of the largest and most active Klan groups in the nation).
Read the article by Yonat Shimron in Sight Magazine.