American Anti-Semitism More Than Doubles

The Fellowship  |  February 27, 2018

Stand for Israel already noted in today’s Daily Dispatch the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States. Now, The Jerusalem Post’s Tamara Zieve takes a closer look at this alarming trend, which saw 1,986 acts of anti-Semitic violence in the U.S. alone last year:

The number of antisemitic incidents was nearly 60% higher in 2017 than 2016, the largest single-year increase on record, according to a report released by the Anti-Defamation League on Tuesday.

There were 1,986 antisemitic incidents reported across the United States in 2017, including 1,015 incidents of harassment, 952 incidents of vandalism, and 19 physical assaults, reported in ADL’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.

That figure represents a 57% increase over the 1,267 incidents in 2016. Every part of the country was affected, with an incident reported in all 50 states for the first time in at least a decade.

The number is the second highest ever reported since ADL started tracking incident data in the 1970s…

The sharp rise in overall incidents was in part due to a significant increase in incidents in schools and on college campuses, which nearly doubled for the second year in a row. There were 457 antisemitic incidents reported in non-Jewish schools, up from 235 in 2016 and 114 in 2015. Jewish institutions and schools also saw incidents double, jumping from 170 in 2016 to 342 last year. Meanwhile, college campuses saw a total of 204 incidents in 2017, compared to 108 in 2016…