Hate crimes and harassment against Jews in the United States have risen in the past four years. Some of which were the deadliest scale in American history. An important thing to look at is if the ideas behind these crimes are spreading. If the ideas spread the incidents will rise.

At the internet there are about 38 active American white supremacist groups, individuals and online platforms have in total 3.5 million followers or less.
In America’s mostly left wing college environment, a few hundred antisemitic incidents were reported in the first half of 2018. This phenomenon has intensified in the past few years and is often Israel-related. Expressing solidarity with Israel has become dangerous these days. Radical anti-Israel groups have gone as far as calling for the genocide of Jews and threatened Jews regardless of their position on Israel Such groups are sometimes allied with radical Muslim groups.
As devastating as the terror attacks that are inspired by online white supremacists can be, we can conclude from the numbers that active white supremacy is still in the fringes of American society. The same thing is true for antisemitism at the left. Also, America’s Muslim population has the lowest level of antisemitism of all Muslim populations in the world.

The amount of people that hold antisemitic beliefs in America is 14%, one of the lowest numbers in the world.

Yet, we need to be vigilant about the spread of hatred towards Jews and others. Fringe antisemitism is growing. We see white supremacists who only recently joined active internet groups picking up their guns. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has 200 chapters by now on American campuses.

Also, shooting stars of antisemitism have recently entered American mainstream. Classic anti-Jewish tropes were heard from members of Congress. In tens of American mosques imams called for the annihilation of the Jews during prayer services. And a worrying 6% of Non-Hispanic white Americans believe in the core principles of the Alt-Right

I grew up as a Jew in Europe in the sixties and seventies in a society that was hardly antisemitic. If you watch my documentary ‘Never Again Is Now’ on Amazon you can see the experiences I had of how things changed for the Jews in Europe in the eighties and nineties. First it spread at the academic far left, and from there to the intelligentsia, the media, mainstream politics, main street and even my own street.

The antisemite Jeremy Corbyn was a fringe politician at the British Labour Party until 2015. Now he is the party’s leader and could become Britain’s Prime Minister after the next elections. Many European Jews are worried about all these developments and consider leaving.
I left Europe already in 2006 to settle in the safer United States. Now I see the first signs there that I saw in Europe when things started to get worse for the Jews and others.

A documentary was made about Evelyn’s personal story of rising antisemitism in Europe and the United States, called ‘Never Again Is Now’. To watch the documentary, click here.

Evelyn Markus

Author Evelyn Markus

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