Anti-Semitism Up in US, Incidents Worldwide

Several anti-Jewish hate crimes were recorded in recent weeks as the Anti-Defamation League released a survey recording a rise in American Anti-Semitism.

Swastikas at US Colleges
At Columbia University, Jewish faculty member Elizabeth Midlarsky of the university’s Teachers College found a Nazi swastika spray-painted on the door of her office last week.

Midlarsky says she has received hate-mail recently as well.

Shortly after the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia in September, a noose was hung on the door of a Columbia professor, and graffiti of a Jew with a swastika was found on a rest room door.

The FBI is investigating a string of swastika incidents at George Washington University, according to The Hatchet, GWU’s student newspaper. Eight incidents have been reported – five targeting the dormitory of a Jewish reporter for the paper.

Kiev Jewish School Burned
Arsonists burned a Chabad-run Jewish school in Kiev last Wednesday night. According to local Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz, a whole wing of the Simcha School was burned.

The school, which serves 600 Jewish students from pre-Kindergarten to 11th grade, was not in session at the time of the arson.

Graves Desecrated in New Zealand
Jewish graves in Wellington, New Zealand were daubed with anti-Jewish slogans last month, according to the local New Zealand Jewish Chronicle.

Six gravestones at the Karori Cemetery were defaced, allegedly due to a report in a local paper that the Israeli Ambassador did not hire native New Zealanders to work at the Israeli Embassy.

According to the report, local Jewish leaders tried to keep the vandalism a secret, fearing others would mimic the attack. Over 100 Jewish graves and a synagogue were vandalized three years ago following an episode in which Israeli intelligence agents were arrested for holding fraudulent passports.

Kristallnacht Neo-Nazi March Cancelled Due to Technicality
Prague’s city council has found a technical way to bar a Neo-Nazi group from holding a provocative Kristallnacht march through the city’s Jewish Quarter, despite a court-ruling upholding the Nazis’ rights to due to.

City officials said that the march cannot take place since the group announced the march two weeks before its organization had became legally registered. The march though the city’s Jewish Quarter was supposed to take place on November 10, the anniversary of Kristallnacht – the night Nazis first burned down synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses.

Death Camp Concert Cancelled
A rock concert that was scheduled to take place Saturday at the site of a Nazi death camp in Belgrade was called off after protests by Jewish groups.

The organizers of the concert, which was to feature the British band Kosheen, said the event was canceled due to “pressure from foreign and domestic media.”

Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Efraim Zuroff called the planned concert “a heartless insult to the memory of the victims of the Nazis” in a statement released Friday.

ADL: 15% of Americans “Unquestionably Anti-Semitic”
The Anti-Defamation League announced Thursday that a survey it commissioned shows that 15 percent of Americans espouse “unquestionably anti-Semitic” ideas.

The group carried out a similar survey in 2005 and says the figure has risen by one percentage point since then. The group says the survey marks an alarming trend, as for the last decade, the figure has been declining. In 1992, the survey showed 20 percent holding such views.

”These findings, coupled with the ongoing acts of anti-Semitic incidents and hate crimes, suggest that anti-Semitic beliefs endure and resonate with a substantial segment of the population, nearly 35 million people,” ADL Director Abraham Foxman told the group’s leadership.

The survey results that Foxman believes demonstrate “unquestionable anti-Semiti[sm]” include the response of 31 percent of participants, who believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than America and 27 percent who believe Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus – though that figure is down from 30 percent in 2005.

Highlighted most by Foxman is that 15 percent believe Jews have too much power in the US.

“When it comes to Jews, old stereotypes die hard,” said Mr. Foxman, “especially about loyalty, the death of Jesus, and power. For over 40 years one of the most stable and telling indicators of anti-Jewish prejudice in America has been the question of fundamental Jewish loyalty to the U.S.”

Mr. Foxman added that, “Stereotypes about ‘Jewish power’ in the U.S. have replaced many of the classical ethnic stereotypes previously attributed to Jewish Americans.”

The ADL presented the statistics by ethnicity. “29% of foreign-born Hispanics hold hardcore anti-Semitic beliefs (down from 35%),” the ADL reported, “while 15% of Hispanics born in the US fall into the same category (down from 19%).”

The number of African-Americans with strong anti-Semitic beliefs has remained high and stable since 1992. “The 2007 survey found that 32% of African-Americans hold strong anti-Semitic beliefs, more than three times more than the 10% for whites. In 1992 it was 37%; 1998: 34%; 2002: 35%, 2005: 36%.

“We continue to remain troubled and somewhat at a loss to understand why African-Americans consistently have such strong anti-Semitic propensities,” said Foxman.

On a Positive Note
“On a positive note,” the ADL survey results reported, “[We] found a majority of Americans hold Jews in high regard on many issues. The most positive attributes ascribed to American Jews relate to ethics and family. 55% believe that Jews have a “special commitment to social justice and civil rights.” 65% agree that Jews “contributed much to the cultural life of America” [and] 79% see as positive Jewish “emphasis on the importance of family life.”