U.S. Jews grapple with anti-Semitism eruption
Anti-Defamation League focuses on surge in vitriol
NEW YORK — American Jews gathered Thursday to wrestle with how they should confront an election-year surge in antiSemitism, a level of bias not seen in the U.S. for decades.
At a national meeting of t he Anti- Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights group, about 1,000 people listened to talks expressing shock at the hatred expressed during the presidential campaign and questioned what they thought was a high level of acceptance by other Americans.
“I’m struggling right now in this American moment,” said Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, an education and research organization. “I wonder whether I have been — and I think the answer is probably yes — a little bit naive.”
During this past year, anti-Semitic imagery proliferated on social media, Jewish journalists were targeted and longstanding anti-Jewish conspiracy theories got a fresh airing. Much of the bias originated with the alternative right, a loose group espousing a provocative and reactionary strain of conservatism.
It’s often associated with far right efforts to preserve “white identity,” oppose multiculturalism and defend “Western values.”
In addition to the online intimidation, reports of anti-Semitic vandalism and other attacks have risen.
Last week, the day after the election, a Philadelphia storefront was sprayed with a swastika and the words “Sieg Heil 2016,” which means “Hail Victory,” a Anti-Defamation League leader Jonathan Greenblatt, left, says it’s vital to understand what Jews are up against. common Nazi chant, and the word “Trump,” with a swastika replacing the “T.”
These developments have stunned U.S. Jewish leaders, who in recent years had been more focused on anti-Semitism in Europe and on addressing complaints of anti-Jewish bias on college campuses amid the debate over the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
In a sign of the depth of American Jewish anxiety about anti-Semitism, ADL officials said donations to their organization increased 50-fold in the days after the election and a large majority of the money came from first-time donors.
Every one of their regional offices reported an uptick in calls from people wanting to donate or volunteer, the ADL said.
“We must not be silent, we must raise our voices, we must act, and to act we must understand what we are up against,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive officer of ADL, opening the meeting in Manhattan.
As the presidential race intensified, Jews started seeing their names bracketed with a series of parentheses in harassing tweets, signaling that the person had been identified as a Jew. The image became known as the Jewish cowbell and its source was traced to neo-Nazis and white nationalists.
The ADL investigated the harassment and found more than 800 journalists had suffered anti-Semitic attacks on Twitter during the election, mostly from anonymous Twitter accounts, although some belonged to known white supremacists.
Jane Eisner, editor-inchief of the Forward, an influential Jewish newspaper that covered the election, said she received an email the morning after the second presidential debate with an image of a Nazi solder pointing a gun at her head, digitally manipulated onto a concentration camp uniform.
Donald Trump’s campaign came under scrutiny since much of the harassment came from accounts tied to his supporters.
The president- elect’s daughter Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, one of his top advisers, are Orthodox Jews. Kushner has defended Trump against allegations of bias.
The issue erupted anew when Trump announced far-right publishing executive Stephen Bannon as his top White House strategist.