ADL: Nearly 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents reported in US in 2017

<p>The Anti-Defamation League says there were nearly 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents reported in the U.S. in 2017, a massive spike from the previous year.</p>

News 12 Staff

Oct 30, 2018, 6:43 PM

Updated 2,176 days ago

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The Anti-Defamation League says there were nearly 2,000 anti-Semitic incidents reported in the U.S. in 2017, a massive spike from the previous year.
Last Saturday, 11 people were gunned down as they attended the Tree of Life synagogue. It was the deadliest assault on Jews in U.S. history.
Director Steve Ginsburg of the Anti-Defamation League's Connecticut Regional Office says that they have seen a trending increase of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents across the country. He says the trend is alarming.
The ADL reported a 57 percent rise in the number of incidents against Jews nationwide from 2016 to 2017. Those incidents included bomb threats, graffiti, hate speech and physical violence.
"Which is the largest we've seen in the 40 years we've been tracking that data," says Ginsburg.
Some incidents around the U.S. include a synagogue desecrated in Indiana, flyers placed around a California campus targeting Jewish students, and a crowd chanting "Jews will not replace us" while holding torches in Virginia.
In Connecticut, swastikas have been spray-painted in Ridgefield, carved into a tree in Redding, and drawn in a school bathroom in Wilton.
The ADL says political rhetoric is at least partly to blame for these incidents.
They say a way to help to reduce these incidents is by people of all faiths coming together to condemn what happened.
Ginsburg says the proliferation of hate of all kinds, including anti-Semitism on social media, has been astounding.
A study released last week by the ADL saw a marked rise in the number of anti-Semitic tweets in the time before the upcoming midterm elections.