Oren Segal serves as director of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Centre on Extremism, which is based in New York. He was in Toronto recently to participate in a panel on “global anti-Semitism,” which he believes “is making a comeback.”
Tell me about anti-Semitism in the United States. What are the numbers?
At the ADL, we put out an annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents. In the last two years, 2018 and 2017, we’ve had the second- and third-highest number of anti-Semitic incidents reported to us since we started doing this in 1979 (the highest was in 1994).
In 2017, the number was 1,986 and there was a slight decline last year of about five per cent. But these are still at all-time highs.
The audit is one snapshot. It’s important to note that at a time when there is a lot of public divisiveness, hatred and bigotry seems to be leading the news cycle almost every day. In some sense, people feel that the only way they can make a statement against hate is to actually report it. While the numbers are high and certainly should be a cause for concern, I also like to think of those as people taking responsibility to report what they’re seeing.
That being said, we’re also seeing FBI hate crime numbers that are increasing, as well.
What sort of incidents are we talking about?
Vandalism and harassment are still the two most common types. What we did see last year, or the last time we put the audit out in 2018, is that there was a significant increase in assaults, as well.
We have to put it into this context, as well. We have seen a series of extremist-related mass shootings in the U.S. We recently commemorated the anniversary of the Tree of Life synagogue attack in Pittsburgh, the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in American history. And then, six months to the date, another apparent white supremacist attacked a synagogue in Poway, Calif.
More recently, there was a similar attack in Germany. So violent anti-Semitism, and the spread and rise of that around the world, is some of the most concerning that we’re seeing.
You mentioned three very violent incidents, but what about other violent acts, like assaults? Are they increasing?
We are seeing a rise in assaults more broadly. The Pittsburgh attack was one of a reported 39 physical assaults against Jews in 2018, which was a 105 per cent increase over the previous year. That included 59 individuals who were the victims of assault. We’re seeing violence against the Orthodox community in parts of Brooklyn, in New York.
These are all signs that not only is anti-Semitism front and centre, but that people have a willingness to engage in violence on behalf of these anti-Semitic ideas. That’s what I think is ultimately the most concerning.
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You mentioned that anti-Semitism is growing around the world. What do you think accounts for that?
It’s a hard question, but I think there are items we can point to.
The first item is the ability for anti-Semitic memes, narratives and tropes to spread with greater ease than at any time in human history, through various social media platforms. So access to that is greater than ever before. When you look at the extreme violence, we’ve seen the impact some of these online spaces have on those individuals who carry out these attacks.
That’s part of the normalization of anti-Semitism. A lot of that focus tends to be on public officials, or media, where anti-Semitic narratives that used to be on the fringes are getting more air time.
But I would argue that the normalization in many ways is occurring on our phones. That’s where people are spending so much of their time. I have to think that the intentional spread of anti-Semitism online is playing a role in what we are seeing on the ground.
Is it your suggestion that the attitudes behind anti-Semitism are more or less the same as they’ve been in the past, but that the new media is increasing the ability to make them public? Or are people’s attitudes towards Jews changing?
That is one element that we have to consider: that anti-Semitism is more ubiquitous than at any other time, because it is so easily accessible over the Internet.
The second element is that narratives that used to be on the fringes, that I would see on a random forum 20 years ago when I started this work, are starting to become part of the public discussion.
For example, narratives that George Soros is funding some migrant caravan. That alludes to Jewish control of a very divisive political issue. That’s sort of classic anti-Semitism, and yet it’s finding a common voice in the more public discussion and mainstream media.
We did a study of countries around the world several years ago that surveyed anti-Semitic attitudes in Europe and throughout the Middle East. There were high levels of anti-Semitism. So it’s not that it hasn’t always been around. But I think now it’s being weaponized. That is perhaps new not because of technology, but because people fail to recognize anti-Semitism anymore.
Do you think that openly anti-Semitic attitudes are becoming more socially acceptable in the United States?
You still have rejection of those who engage in anti-Semitic speech, whether it’s public officials, public figures, sports figures, actors. We tend to hold people accountable for what they say in this country.
That being said, I do sense that certain tropes that used to be very much the currency of the extremes, on the fringes, increasingly are becoming part of the mainstream discussion. And again, to me, that is more of a sign that people are not even able to identify what anti-Semitism is, that it has become so normalized in some circles, they don’t recognize the impact of what they are saying.
This interview has been edited and condensed for style and clarity
