'Unmasking of Hate' Anti-Semitic Incidents Rise In Wisconsin

MILWAUKEE, WI — Calling it "the unmasking of hate," a local community organization just finished reporting on the number of Anti-Semitic incidents that happened in Wisconsin last year, and the number of incidents went up at an alarming rate, observers say.

“This year’s findings shine a light on the unmasking of hate in our community,” said Cynthia Herber, chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council's Anti-Semitism and Constitutional Law Task Force. “We see that people feel emboldened and are acting on it. The audit helps us understand where we need to focus our work.”

Observers see the continuation of two trends, with steadily increasing numbers of incidents in two particular areas:
• Almost one third of all incidents take place in schools or on college campuses.
• More than 25 percent of all incidents involved the use of social media.

“The proliferation of hate via social media is a phenomenon that affects us all, including the companies that
provide social media platforms, legislators who set guidelines, and all of us who use these media,” said JCRC
Director Elana Kahn. JCRC will focus its June 21 annual meeting on this issue by hosting journalist Yair Rosenberg, whom the New York Times has called “a digital Nazi hunter.”

Across the U.S., the Anti-Defamation League recently released its yearly audit and said actions considered hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews rose 57 percent in 2017 — the largest single-year increase since the group began tracking the statistic in 1979.

There were 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, the organization said, referring to harassment, vandalism or assault. That’s the second highest number the group has ever seen. While assaults nationwide dropped by nearly half from 36 in to 19, vandalism nearly doubled from 510 to 952.

In Wisconsin, there were 31 anti-Semitic incidents, including 10 incidents of vandalism and 21 harassment incidents, the ADL said.

Yael Rabin, an analyst with the ADL’s center on extremism, noted an uptick in 2017 in harassment, such as “white supremacists distributing flyers” with overt or explicit anti-Semitic content on them — “whether it’s demonizing the Jews, dehumanizing Jews, et cetera.”

Incidents are defined as vandalism, or harassment or assault if the circumstances indicated anti-Jewish animus on the part of the perpetrator or Jews perceived themselves as the victim due to their Jewish identity. Vandalism against Jewish religious institutions and cemeteries was also included.

Reported Incidents

The following is a list of some of the reported incidents in Wisconsin. Each reported incident is corroborated and reviewed before any action is taken. The audit is reviewed by the JCRC’s Anti-Semitism & Constitutional Law Task Force and the JCRC Board before the final approval process of the JCRC Community Council.

Harassment, Threats and Assault

• A letter sent to a Jewish elected official in western Wisconsin included a clipping of a newspaper article written by the official, with a hand drawn swastika and the words, “Concentration camp you go.”
• Four bomb threats were called into the Jewish community campus, which houses a community center, two preschools, two K-8 schools, and a program for teens. As an 11 year old child walked home from school, a passing driver shouted, “We hate Jews. Let’s kill them.
• A middle school student drew a picture depicting a stick figure with a swastika on its head, pointing a gun and shooting his Jewish teacher in the head.
• The student government at UW Madison used discriminatory, exclusionary and underhanded tactics to pass a controversial Israel-related resolution, including scheduling the vote for Passover, when Jewish students were absent. Additionally, during an open meeting, the only Jewish council member was called “the elephant in the room.”

Written and Verbal Expression

• In two separate incidents, Nazi flag were flown outside homes.
• A recipient at a Jewish agency became angry about the speed of service and said, “Now I know why they want to kill the Jews.”
• After losing a business contract, a businessman posted on social media many unabashedly anti-Semitic comments, including: “No freedom of speech in JewMerica” and “the back stabbing Jewish lapdogs” “The bastards own the politicians, the media, the banks and Hollywood.” He also accused Israel of having a role in 9/11.

Written in part by Dan Hampton of Patch’s national staff.

Photo: (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)