The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported within the United States increased by nearly 60 percent in 2017, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Tuesday, constituting the largest single-year spike since the watchdog group began keeping track in 1979.
The ADL logged a total of 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. last year, including physical assaults, acts of vandalism and attacks on Jewish institutions, up 57 percent from the 1,267 incidents logged in 2016, the organization revealed in its Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents released Tuesday.
The swell marks the largest single-year increase in nearly four decades of reporting, and the sheer number of anti-Semitic incidents logged during 2017 pales to only one other year on record, 1994, when the ADL reported 2,066 events.
“A confluence of events in 2017 led to a surge in attacks on our community – from bomb threats, cemetery desecrations, white supremacists marching in Charlottesville and children harassing children at school,” said Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO and national director.
“These incidents came at a time when we saw a rising climate of incivility, the emboldening of hate groups and widening divisions in society,” he said in a statement. “In reflecting on this time and understanding it better with this new data, we feel even more committed to our century-old mission to stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”
Among the nearly 2,000 events logged by the ADL last year were 1,015 incidents of harassment, 952 incidents of vandalism and 19 physical assaults, according to the report.
While the number of recorded physical assaults was down 47 percent from 2018, incidents of vandalism and harassment increased by 86 and 41 percent respectively during that same span, the report said.
Congress could help counter the increase by passing legislation, the ADL advised, pointing specifically to legislation already approved in the House, the Protecting Religiously Affiliated Institutions Act, that would expand federal protections for religious facilities facing bomb threats. The bill passed 402-2 in the House in December, but has been dormant ever since.
The ADL typically publishes its statistics annually, but the watchdog published a preliminary report late last year amid a reported uptick in anti-Semitic incidents. Released in November, the previous report acknowledged a “distinct increase” in anti-Semitic activity following the “Unite the Right” rally held last August in Charlottesville, Virginia, where white nationalists violently clashed with counterprotesters.
The ADL previously logged a total of 306 anti-Semitic incidents during the third quarter (July 1-Sept. 30), including 221 reported on or after “Unite the Right.”
More recently, the ADL reported in February that reports of white supremacist propaganda on U.S. college campuses surged by more than 200 percent between the 2016 and 2017 fall semesters.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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