Cronkite school of journalism at
Arizona state university.
Judy: Antisemitic incidents hit
a record high last year in the
United States.
William brangham has more on
what is behind the rise in hate.
William: The anti-defamation
league, which tracks
anti-semitic behavior
nationwide, found 2717 incidents
in 2021.
That's a 34% increase from the
year before.
That averages to more than seven
anti-semitic incidents per day.
Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO
of the anti-defamation league
and author of the recent book
"It could happen here: Why
America is tipping from hate to
the unthinkable and how we can
stop it."
Jonathan Greenblatt, good to
have you back on the newshour.
This report documents the most
anti-semitic attacks in the U.
S. Since the adl started
recording these events back in
the 1970's.
Can you help us understand, how
should we interpret what you
found?
Jonathan: I think the data
unfortunately speaks for itself
in some ways.
As you pointed out, this is the
highest total we've ever tracked
in more than 40 years of doing
this work.
And we should keep in mind that
anti-semitic acts were going
down in the United States for
almost 15 years, and then in
2016, they started to move up.
And we're now at the point where
we have nearly triple the number
of incidents today that we did
in 2015.
I mean, in the past year alone,
assaults increased 167%.
And we saw examples of vandalism
on the rise.
Harassment on the rise.
So I think anti-semitism really
isn't just, I would suggest a
jewish problem.
It's an American problem.
It's typically the canary in the
coal mine.
And so as things are beginning
to unravel more broadly, the
jewish community is often the
target of scapegoating and
victimized in that way.
And that's exactly what's
happening here.
William: Your report points out
a timeline coincidence that a
lot of these attacks really
surged right around the 2021
violence between Israel and
hamas in gaza.
And similarly, as you're
mentioning, there were also a
similar number of attacks on
arab-americans and
muslim-americans.
Why do you think those events
were such a trigger?
Jonathan: I can't speak to the
number of attacks on
arab-americans during that time.
I'm not really aware.
Or muslim-americans.
But I can tell you specifically
that in the period of may during
the conflict, we saw nearly 150%
increase of anti-semitic acts
over the same period of time in
2020.
Now, be honest.
You often see with incidents in
the Middle East or conflict,
things can be triggered here at
home.
But we've never seen a situation
like this before.
You had Jews being beaten and
brutalized in broad daylight,
say, in the middle of times
square or Los Angeles or the
strip in Las Vegas, where people
who were simply identified as
jewish, you know, came under
assault, an attack.
That was new.
And I think what you're seeing
is a kind of normalization of
anti-semitism and extremism.
And to put this in some degree
of context.
We know, for example, that when
we saw elected officials and
people in positions of authority
after the outbreak of covid
denigrating China, attacking its
policies, making wild claims
about their intentionality of
the regime in beijing to
spreading covid around the
world, we saw attacks on
asian-americans here at home.
By the same token, when you had
people make wild claims about
the jewish state, make unhinged
accusations.
Maybe it shouldn't surprise us
that then people attacked jewish
Americans here at home.
So I think we need people in
positions of authority to kind
of dial down the rhetoric, to
realize that words have
consequences and to be a bit
more responsible.
William: Addressing hatred in
any one individual is obviously
a very difficult thing to do.
You talked about lowering the
temperature, but are there other
things that people of goodwill
, that that social media
companies, that other
policymakers could do to reduce
this hatred and bigotry?
Jonathan: Certainly there are
things that can be done.
Number one, I think individuals
should be feel empowered to
interrupt intolerance when it
happens.
Call out hate when you hear it,
whether it's directed at jewish
people or, by the way, anyone
else.
And in our polarized society, we
often don't want to.
We point to the other side.
But we need to call it out when
it happens among our own.
Conservatives calling it out
when conservatives do it.
Liberals calling it out when
liberals do it.
That's really important.
I think the social media
companies could play a huge
role.
Their algorithms don't need to
amplify intolerance and
anti-semitism just a little bit
more.
A little bit more discretion by
the companies could dial down
the drama dramatically.
And then finally, I'd like to
see policymakers bring anti-bias
education into classrooms, bring
communities together.
There's a lot more that could be
done.
William: Jonathan Greenblatt of
the anti-defamation league,
thank you so much for being
here.
Jonathan: Thank you.