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Friday, May 6th, 2022

Antisemitism Increased Under Trump. Then It Got Even Worse.

Author:     Michelle Goldberg
Source:     The New York Times
Publication Date:     April 29, 2022
 Link: Antisemitism Increased Under Trump. Then It Got Even Worse.
Stephan:   I have always been aware of antisemitism because my surname is Schwartz and many people, particularly antisemites, assume I am Jewish. I'm not. It was the name my father's family was given at Ellis Island when they came to the U.S. from Romania in 1906. Whatever they said had too many consonants I was told. Apparently, such name changing was once quite common. I told this story at a conference some years ago and afterwards, a woman came up and introduced herself as Mary O'Reilly. I said that's certainly an Irish name, and she responded, "It is but my family is Czech, we had the same problem." In a way, I have been glad about this little oddity of naming because it has given me the gift of experiencing hateful bias, and how irrational it is. And this irrationality is a fundamental part of the MAGAt world. The increasing frequency of antisemitic events, often accompanied by violence, like a symptom of a disease, is warning us how sick American culture has become.
Credit: Markus Schreiber/Associated Press

The Anti-Defamation League this week released a report showing that in 2021, there were more antisemitic incidents in America than in any other year since the group started keeping track over 40 years ago. “We’ve never seen data like this before, ever,” Jonathan Greenblatt, national director of the A.D.L., told me.

The rapid growth of Jew hatred isn’t limited to the United States. According to a new report from the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, antisemitic incidents were up last year in such countries as Australia, Britain, Canada, France and Germany. Comparisons to 2020 might be misleading, because pandemic lockdowns likely reduced the numbers of antisemitic assaults and in-person harassment. But in several countries, including the United States, there were more antisemitic incidents in 2021 than in the prepandemic year 2019.

As the Tel Aviv University report pointed out, there are countless conferences, training programs and legislative proposals devoted to fighting antisemitism. “There is no shortage of organizations dedicated to the cause, which gained […]

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1 Comment

  1. Rev. Dean on Friday, May 6, 2022 at 9:18 am

    My Grandfather on my step-father’s side was the same way. He came from the southern part of Italy and had a name which would have been associated with the Mafia back in the early 1900’s so he changed his very lone name (which I never knew) was changed to Rose which was related more toward his occupation as a gardener.