According to a new report published Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States soared by 57% in 2017 from the previous year. The figure includes assaults, harassment, and vandalism.
The total number of attacks — at least those the ADL was able to keep track of — was 1,986. In 2016, the reported total was 1,267.
This is the highest statistic the group has found since 1994 and the second highest since it started tracking these incidents in 1979.
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Overall, 1,015 of the incidents were harassment, 952 were vandalism, and 19 were assault. For all these categories, hatred for the Jewish people specifically had to be demonstrated by the perpetrators.
Every single state was the site of at least one attack, the first time this has happened since 2010.
There is no doubt this is related to the Trump presidency and the bigoted rhetoric he and his surrogates openly spout. Not only have shows of anti-Semitism increased, hate crimes have increased across the board for nearly all minority groups, especially Muslims. White supremacist groups also increased during Trump’s first year in office. And if statistics aren’t convincing enough, one only needs to look back at the pro-Trump neo-Nazis and white nationalists — including former KKK grand wizard David Duke — in the violent Charlottesville rally who specifically credited him for energizing their movement.
