The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in the U.S. has increased by 67 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) audit released Thursday.
Some 1,299 incidents of physical assaults, vandalism, and defacement of Jewish institutions occurred between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, compared to 779 over the same period last year, with a notable spike after August’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The audit also found a notable increase in anti-Semitic bullying and vandalism in schools. Incidents in K-12 grade schools during the period covered by the review more than doubled from 130 to 269, while those on college campuses went from 74 to 118.
In Healdsburg, California, for example, a sixth-grade Jewish boy was taunted with swastikas and cigarette lighters and told by classmates that they would burn him “like they did in the Holocaust.”
Other examples cited by the ADL include a Fairfax, Virginia Jewish Community Center being defaced with the SS symbol and words “Hitler was right,” and an Orthodox Jewish woman in Brooklyn being called a “fucking Jew” by an assailant who pulled her wig off.
“We are astonished and horrified by the rise in anti-Semitic harassment, incidents and violence targeting our communities,” ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt said in a statement. “While the tragedy in Charlottesville highlighted this trend, it was not an aberration. Every single day, white supremacists target members of the Jewish community—holding rallies in public, recruiting on college campuses, attacking journalists on social media, and even targeting young children.”
The ADL’s data is drawn from victims, law enforcement, and community leaders, and includes both criminal and non-criminal acts.
