Anti-Semitism Now ‘Fashionable’ in the US, Warn Experts

Attacks Against Jews Account for Close to 60% of Hate Crimes, Despite Strong Cooperation Between Government Agencies to Combat the Scourge

By Cathryn J. Prince
The Times of Israel

Not a week seems to go by without an anti-Semitic attack in the United States – either verbal or violent – against Jews.

“Unfortunately anti-Semitism has become fashionable again,” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president for the New York Board of Rabbis, told The Times of Israel. “It’s not a big deal to hate the Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews.”

This week, a Boise woman attacked her Jewish neighbor and stood on her neck until she said she believes in Jesus. Also this week, swastikas were spray painted on some 30 homes in Madison, Wisconsin.

In January, pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a New York City Council meeting that was discussing a resolution commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And later in the month in California, two swastikas were found spray painted onto the wall and at the doorstep of the Jewish Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity at UC Davis.

Following the defacement of Emory University’s AEPi house with swastikas last September, members of the AEPi chapter at Washington University in St. Louis posed in front of their house with signs in support of their Emory brothers and against anti-Semitism (courtesy)

“Unfortunately, far too few have said too little for too long,” Potasnik said.

The New York rabbi couples these recent domestic examples of anti-Semitism to what’s going on in the rest of the world. The terror attack this week outside a synagogue in Denmark in which a 22-year-old lone shooter killed volunteer guard Dan Uzan is the latest in a string of violent European incidents.

The United States is not immune to the scourge.

“The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must all do what we can to respond to this growing threat,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “History has shown us the ramifications of silence.

The Anti-Defamation League warned in a recent statement just what those ramifications are.

“There must be a clear and consistently reinforced and maintained understanding that the hatred, bigotry and prejudice against Jews that threatens the future of Jewish life in many places is indeed an assault on the well-being and sense of security for all minorities and on society as a whole,” said Michael A. Salberg, the Anti-Defamation League’s Director of International Affairs.

And while the number may wax and wane in the United States from year to year, the fact is more than half of all religiously motivated hate crimes target Jews and Jewish institutions.

“Very disturbingly nearly 60 percent of religious-based crimes are against Jews,” said Michael Lieberman, director of the Civil Rights Policy Planning Center for the Anti-Defamation League.

The Jewish Times continues