Kraft launches campaign to fight antisemitism
Gives $25m to the initiative
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft launched a new ad campaign Monday to combat rising anti-Jewish bigotry across the country.
The campaign, called “Stand Up to Jewish Hate,” received a $25 million investment from Kraft and his family. The effort will be managed by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, which Kraft formed in 2019.
The initiative “is designed to raise awareness for the fight against antisemitism, specifically among non-Jewish audience and to help all Americans understand that there is a role for each of us to play in combating a problem that is unfortunately all too prevalent,” Kraft said in a statement.
Kraft told CBS News in an interview that aired Monday that he has “never seen” such levels of “hatred, and bigotry, and antisemitism.”
“We’ve, we’re at a danger point, I’m sorry to say,” Kraft, 81, said in the interview. “I’ve never seen things, the hatred and bigotry that’s going on. This is the United States of America. And it’s something that really bothers me. So we hopefully are going to do something about it.”
The initiative follows a report from the Anti-Defamation League that showed an alarming rise in antisemitic activity across the United States in 2022. Nationally, 3,697 incidents of assault, harassment, and vandalism were recorded, a 36 percent increase from 2021 and the highest number since the ADL began tracking such reports in 1979.
In Massachusetts, 152 incidents were recorded last year, the sixth-highest in the country and a 41 percent increase from 2021, the ADL found.
The new campaign features a blue square that takes up 2.4 percent of the screen — the same percentage of the US population that identifies as Jewish. To somber piano music, the 60-second ad notes that Jewish people are the targets of more than half of religious hate crimes.
The ad then shows images of antisemitic graffiti, burning swastikas, and a memorial to the victims of the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
“Show them your support,” a message reads on the screen, referring to the Jewish population. “And share this blue square. Let the Jewish community know they are not fighting alone. Anymore.”
The Patriots shared the ad on the team’s Twitter account Monday, under a caption that read, “Antisemitism has no place in our sport, country or world.”
The foundation has a command center at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough that allows it to monitor anti-Jewish bigotry in real-time.
“Our foundation has tracked a steady rise in antisemitic rhetoric on social media since 2020, with an increase of 14 percent in the past year,” said Matthew Berger, executive director of the foundation. “We hope this campaign educates and empowers all Americans to speak out against antisemitism when they see it, either online or in their communities.”
Berger said in a phone interview Monday that the command center allows the foundation to “regularly monitor antisemitism and hate on social media platforms, and be able to identify trends and terms and what conversations are happening in the moment.”
The data are shared with “partners and allies” who can “respond and engage more accurately” on the online platforms, he said.
“We really feel that we’re speaking to people who want to do the right thing but don’t understand that antisemitism is a problem,” Berger said. “We believe that is an audience that we can reach. The values we are reinforcing are the same values we expect people to utilize when they see racism, gender inequality, LGBTQ hatred, whatever it is.”
The campaign, Berger added, is a “real passion project” for Kraft, who he said has devoted much of his philanthropy to helping groups besides his own faith community in “addressing inequalities.”
“This is him sort of turning his lens inward and seeing the same type of existential threat to the Jewish community and rolling up his sleeves in the same way,” Berger said.
Earlier this month, Kraft announced that he had formed a new partnership with Brandeis University to fight antisemitism. The Robert Kraft FamilyBrandeis Collaboration on Antisemitism will seek to address the recent rise of antisemitism, officials said earlier this month.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.