The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting at the Tree of Life Congregation that took place a week and a half ago reverberated throughout the Jewish world. After all, it was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history, with 11 fatalities. Although I did not personally know any of the individuals who were murdered, the evil of anti-Semitism in this massacre was strong enough where I felt its impact. I have been called anti-Semitic slurs in the past, but the impact of those insults seemed to pale in comparison when I heard what happened at the Tree of Life Congregation. Why? Because the suspect of the massacre (who I will not mention by name here) was reported screaming "Kill All Jews!" It didn't matter what the Jew's political affiliation, religiosity, skin color, or sexual orientation was. It acted as a reminder that there are still people out there who will not be happy until all Jews are dead. As you can imagine, I take that personally.
After the massacre, I saw my Facebook inundated with support of the Jewish community and a call against anti-Semitism. However, I noticed something else. There was a rally cry of sorts against President Trump. It was not anything as explicit as "Trump pulled the trigger," but it was indirectly blaming Trump. Essentially, the theory that is popular among those who are anti-Trump is that his rhetoric is responsible for inciting hate-mongers to come out of hiding since they feel like they are emboldened by a President who they believe supports them. Essentially, Trump's incendiary language and anti-immigration, anti-globalism stances motivated the alt-right/white nationalism to be revived in the United States. Part of this alleged revival is a supposed spike in anti-Semitic incidents. And let's forget for a moment that Trump's daughter and son-in-law are Jewish or that he has been one of the most pro-Israel presidents since the creation of the State of Israel.
I do have concerns of whether Trump's rhetoric is stoking the fires because there are times that he can be quite divisive. I expressed concern after the Charlottesville attack last year when I analyzed the prevalence of hate crimes, particularly from the far-Right, in the United States. I found that the odds of being injured in an attack from someone on the far-Right was 1 in 7.6 million, but I can also acknowledge the possibility that a lot can change in a year. Conversely, I know how sensationalist the media can be, and I know how a tragic incident can alter our perception of overall trends, such as with school shootings. As tragic as the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is, I want to see if it was part of a greater trend because otherwise, it would be cherry-picking, and I'm not a fan of confirmation bias. I am also not a fan of having emotion dictate facts, because the multiple logical fallacies having to do with appeal to emotion also detract us from finding a more objective truth on these matters. If there truly has been an uptick, we should try to find some data to corroborate the theory.
The report that gets most often cited on this topic is the Anti-Defamation Legaue (ADL) report entitled the Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents. Their data indicate that between 2016 and 2017, the number of anti-Semitic incidents increased from 1,267 to 1,986. That is a year-to-year increase of 719 incidents, which represents a 57 percent year-to-year increase. Before continuing, we should take this finding with a grain of salt for the reason that we are talking about a one-year trend. Regardless of how robust the data are, two points on a data plot hardly tell us anything, especially when asking some of the bigger questions. But let's say that this increase is significant. We already run into some issues with the ADL's report.
Scrutinizing the ADL Report
One is that the ADL's figures are inflated by bomb threats having nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Even by the ADL's own admission (p. 8), at least 150 of the incidents were due to a disturbed Israeli teenager, Michael Kadar, making hoax bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) in the United States. An additional eight bomb threats were made by Juan Thompson, a man who was using the bomb threats to intimidate his girlfriend. This would mean that 22 percent of this increase in the statistics were because of bomb threats in which the motivation ultimately was not anti-Semitism.
Second, a similar argument about the bomb threats could be made for the acts of vandalism. As an example, there was the Jewish cemetery in St. Louis that was vandalized. In this case, the vandal was "drunk and mad," and did not vandalize the cemetery for anti-Semitic reasons. While this is but one case, I wonder how many of these incidents have comparable ambiguities or find to have the motive not be anti-Semitism. As the ADL report's Methodology section states (p. 12), the report includes incidents in which Jews perceive themselves being victimized due to their Jewish identity, as well as those in which the perpetrator expressed anti-Jewish animus. If ADL's reporting includes more incidents in which the motive was perceived rather than determinable, that could skew the perception in terms of perception of the overall trend.
Third, the number of incidents on colleges and universities increased by 108 incidents from 2016. The flaw in the data presented is that it does not indicate who the perpetrators are. Is it far-Right populists or far-Left, pro-Palestinians that have a penchant for such acts? The ADL remains silent on this question.
Finally, the number of assaults on Jews dropped from 36 to 19 incidents, or a decrease of 47 percent. While it accounts for the smallest amount of incidents, it is also the most telling since the nature and motive of assaults is less subjective and more unambiguous.
Postscript
Can we rule out the possibility of a spike in anti-Semitism in the United States? No, we cannot. We would need more data to show a trend line of any sort. At the same time, the ADL report does not definitely prove a huge rise in anti-Semitism, much less that Trumpian populism is the cause for the rise. Not only does the ADL report not provide adequate information, we do not have survey data showing that Trump supporters are more likely to be anti-Semitic, nor do we have FBI hate crime data for 2017. There are plenty of feelings and emotions going around about President Trump's influence on anti-Semitism, but none of this translates into data that could be used to discern whether Trump is responsible. Anything beyond that is speculative.
Before giving into hysteria, let's look at the bigger picture here. While the Pittsburgh synagogue attack was the attack on Jews with the highest casualties in the United States, it was not unprecedented. There was the 2014 Overland Park Jewish Federation shooting, the 2009 shooting at the DC Holocaust Museum, the 2006 attack at the Seattle Jewish Federation, and the 1999 attack on the Los Angeles Jewish Federation.
Second, and more importantly, I question that the far-Right is the only player because of the history of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is the oldest, most universal hatred on this planet. It is so irrational that the Jewish people have been blamed for both capitalism and communism. There is a lot that the far-Left and the far-Right disagree on, but one area where they find common ground is Jew-hatred. Yes, there are white nationalists who hate Jews, but there are those on the far-Left (particularly those of the "pro-Palestinian" variety) that hate Jews, as well.
Before there was a state of Israel, Jews were the minority wherever they went. The Jewish people personify difference and what it means to be "other." This is not to say we should not call out other forms of hatred, whether it be racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or transphobia, because hatred has no place in a pluralistic, democratic society. At the same time, anti-Semitism is unique that it has been taken on by many groups of people over many years in many forms, including religious, cultural, economic, racial, and political anti-Semitism. Anyone who simplifies the anti-Semitism in the United States as a "problem from the alt-Right" or solely blames Trump does not understand the first thing about anti-Semitism.
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