The number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded in the US in 2011 declined y 13% over the number registered the previous year, found the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)’s annual audit, in the most promising statistics for twenty years.
A total of 1,080 incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment were registered, compared with 1,239 in 2010. However, the news wasn’t all positive, as the organisation found a worrying increase in reports of bullying and harassment across school campuses, characterised by a prevalence of traditional anti-Semitic taunts and Nazi and Holocaust-related jibes.
ADL National Director nevertheless described the findings as “encouraging”, adding that “to the extent that these incidents serve as a barometer, the decline shows that we have made progress as a society in confronting anti-Semitism and pushing it to the far fringes, making expressions of anti-Jewish hatred unacceptable”.
However, he qualified, it is important to recognise that “online expressions of anti-Semitism (that) are impossible to quantify and often go unchecked”, invoking recent outcry over anti-Semitic trending on social networking site twitter in France.
"ADL continues to receive a distressing number of complaints about children, adolescents and teenagers engaging in anti-Semitic behaviour, both on and off school grounds," added Robert G. Sugarman, ADL National Chair, calling for a “comprehensive programming promoting diversity and tolerance and combating bullying of all kinds as well as a continued emphasis on Holocaust education in the schools, so that the next generation of students can fully understand the history of that period and the consequences of unchecked hatred, prejudice and bigotry”.
The 2011 figures comprised 19 instances of physical assaults on Jewish community members, 731 cases of harassment, threats and other incidents and 330 cases of vandalism, including an increasing use of the Swastika symbol in attack of Jews and Jewish institutions. The ADL further added that the survey only included instances of attacks on Israel and Zionism, where they crossed “the line from legitimate criticism to anti-Semitism by invoking classic anti-Jewish stereotypes, inappropriate Nazi imagery or analogies, or references that delegitimize, demonize, and/or demonstrate a double standard about Israel”.
The highest number of reported instances of anti-Semitism occurred in California (235), New York (195) and Florida (111), all of which followed the national trend in experiencing dips in the levels of incidents. However, New Jersey, which state along with the other three claims amongst the largest Jewish communities in the US, was alone in reporting an increase in incidents with 144, up from 130 in 2010.
The ADL’s annual audit is designed to help the organisation, which seeks to fight anti-Semitism through programs and services to counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry, to help fight the disturbing trend.
The encouraging statistics in the US provide a marked contrast to the rising climate of anti-Semitism in Europe, following the release of statistics by the French-based Service for the Protection of the Jewish Community (SPCJ), which showed an increase of more than 37% of anti-Semitic incidents in the first half of 2012 compared to the same period last year, with 310 violent or threatening acts reported.
The French Jewish community continues to fear for its safety in the wake of a seeming resurgence of anti-Semitic incidents following al Qaeda sympathiser Mohamed Merah’s shooting of three Jewish children and a father outside a Toulouse Jewish school in March, which has seen police dismantle an Islamic terrorist cell following an attack on a kosher grocery shop in Sarcelles.