DC, VA Report Anti-Semitic Incidents: Anti-Defamation League

WASHINGTON, DC — Anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2019 spiked to the highest level in at least 40 years, with a record 2,100 acts of assault, vandalism and harassment against Jews reported across the United States, including in Virginia and the District of Columbia, according to a report released last week by the Anti-Defamation League. Virginia reported 26 such incidents last year in the state, while DC saw 19 cases.

Anti-Semitic incidents increased 12 percent in 2019 from the prior year, including a 56 percent increase in the number of assaults against Jews — more than half of them occurring in New York City, the report said. All U.S. states except Alaska and Hawaii reported at least one anti-Semitic incident last year.

The report “speaks to the lived experience of Jewish people in the United States,” Aryeh Tuchman, the associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, told Patch.

The 2,107 incidents of anti-Semitic incidents “don’t mean that every Jewish person needs to look over their shoulder all the time,” Tuchman said. “In terms of victims affected directly, that’s a very small percentage of the population. But at the same time, because of reporting, social media and word of mouth, that can have an outside impact on the sense of security, sense of confidence and the possible fear of American Jews.”

The audit includes both criminal and non-criminal acts of intimidation and harassment. In the 61 assault incidents, 95 people were harmed and five were killed. Those attacks included the 2019 shooting at Chabad of Poway in California, where one person was killed; the shooting at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey, where six people, including three Jews, were killed; and a stabbing during a Hanukkah celebration in which one person died of his injuries and several others were wounded.

The assaults also included “the really concerning state of violent attacks on Jews that took place in Brooklyn at the end of the year,” Tuchman said.

In general, “the assaults we documented in 2019 ranged from confrontations not involving weapons — pushing, punching and throwing of objects with evidence of anti-Semitic intent — to the really alarming deadly use of weapons, such as guns and knives,” Tuchman said.

On average, there were as many as six anti-Semitic incidents in the United States each day in 2019, the highest level of anti-Semitic activity since the Anti-Defamation League began collecting statistics in 1979.

In Virginia and DC, incidents included:

• October 2019 in Vienna, VA: A dumpster outside an office building was vandalized with swastika graffiti.
• October 2019 in Alexandria: an Instagram account targeted a middle school-aged boy with an image of a swastika.
• October 2019 in Leesburg: A manager made anti-Semitic comments to employee.
• May 6, 2019, in Haymarket: The Loyal White Knights, a Klan group, left anti-Semitic and racist fliers in the driveways of residential homes and along James Madison Highway.
• October 2019 vandalism in Washington, D.C.: Three businesses in the same vicinity were vandalized with swastika graffiti.
• March 2019 in Washington, D.C.: Anti-Semitic signs and statements were made at a protest against AIPAC.
• March 2019 in Washington, D.C.: Students used swastikas as usernames during an online school assembly.

The Anti-Defamation League report showed 1,127 harassment incidents, 919 vandalism incidents and 61 assault incidents. The five states with the highest number of anti-Semitic reports were:

1. New York, 430
2. New Jersey, 345
3. California,330
4. Massachusetts, 114
5. Pennsylvania, 109

Combined, those states had 45 percent of the total number of anti-Semitic incidents last year in the United States. More than half of the assaults nationwide occurred in the five boroughs of New York City, including 25 in Brooklyn alone, the report said.

The report does not draw conclusions about the motivation behind the anti-Semitic incidents. Tuchman said it’s important not to generalize.

“Every case needs to be assessed on its own,” he said. “When we know who perpetuated a particular assault, we need to understand the motivation of that perpetrator may not be what motivated another perpetrator.”

Typically, he said, the number of assaults in a given year range from 30 to 60, and 2019 is “the latest high-mark year.” Because the number of American Jews reporting anti-Semitic incidents is relatively small, “it’s harder to extrapolate broader trends,” he said.

In an earlier report, the Anti-Defamation League reported an uptick in extremism at stay-at-home protests urging governors to reopen states for business after coronavirus-related closures, but Tuchman said anti-Semitism isn’t an overarching theme.

“It’s a very, very small number of people at these rallies who exhibit bad behavior related to ideological extremism, let alone anti-Semitism,” he said. He pointed out that the presence of swastikas on some signs is more a condemnation of governors’ stay-home orders than anti-Jewish sentiment.

“We view that as offensive,” Tuchman said, “but not necessarily anti-Semitic.”

He said extremists find anti-government activity generally “very attractive, so it’s not surprising a small number were able to glob on to these protests.”

Anti-Semitic incidents may be reported on the organization’s website.

The report doesn’t cover 2020 anti-Semitic incidents, but the Anti-Defamation League keeps a running count as they are reported. In DC and Virginia so far this year, incidents include:

March 31, 2020 in Washington, D.C.: A Jewish organization was holding an educational session on Zoom that was disrupted by two unknown participants who made sex noises and told the other participants, "I support white supremacy. F--- all the Jews."

January 27, 2020 in Washington, D.C.: A synagogue received a harassing anti-Semitic letter alleging that modern day Jews are fake and part of the "Synagogue of Satan."

March 4, 2020 in Manassas: Two teenagers drew swastikas and other graffiti at Stonewall Middle School on a building near the school's track.

February 26, 2020 in Woodbridge: A student at Forest Park High School was charged in connection to swastika graffiti found in a restroom at the school.

February 14, 2020 in Arlington: Swastika vandalism discovered on the wall in a hallway at a middle school.