Anti-Semitism
According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-semitism is: "The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews." Source: Anti-Defamation League
Anti-semitism is part of the belief system and political ideology of white nationalists and neo-Nazis, who draw on the imagery and language of the Nazi Regime during WWII to incite hatred toward Jews. This includes the use of swastikas, photos of concentration camps, versions of the Nazi Heil Hilter salute, the Star of David, and long-standing anti-semitic conspiracy theories such as that Jews control Hollywood, the media, global banking, and political systems.
Timeline
| 1990.09 | Ivana Trump claims her husband keeps book of Hitler speeches by his bed. businessinsider.com (See also Racism, Jewish Americans) |
| 1991.05.10 | The President of Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino publishes a book where he quotes Trump as saying he thinks laziness is a trait in the blacks and he only wants Jews counting his money. web.archive.org (See also Racism, Black Americans, Jewish Americans) |
| 2007 | Steve Bannon proposes a documentary titled, “The Islamic States of America.” Where he describes Jews as, “The Jihadist enablers among us.” jpost.com (See also Steve Bannon, Jewish Americans) |
| 2015.07.14 | Trump Tweets a picture of his face superimposed against an American flag with a stock image of Nazi soldiers marching in the background. news.vice.com (See also 2016 Campaign, Jewish Americans) |
| 2015.10.05 | During a Breitbart interview Jeff Sessions praises The 1924 National Origins Act, a law passed in order to keep Jews and Asians out of the country as “good for America.” theatlantic.com (See also Jeff Sessions, Immigration, Asian Americans, Jewish Americans) |
| 2016.01.22 | Trump retweets a white supremacist. timesofisrael.com (See also Racism, Jewish Americans) |
| 2016.07.02 | Trump retweets a meme (reportedly first posted by a white nationalist group) with the words "Crooked Hillary" over an image of piles of money and a Star of David that declares her the "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever." All of these are standard anti-semitic tropes. Later he deletes the tweet and denies that it was anti-semitic. talkingpointsmemo.com |
| 2016.08.19 | Trump's new foreign adviser accused of Holocaust denial, apparently said "Ovens were too small to kill 6 million Jews." dailykos.com (See also 2016 Campaign, Jewish Americans) |
| 2016.10.19 | Anti-Defamation League report found significant uptick in anti-Semitic posts when the presidential race began to intensify (between August 2015 and July 2016, over 2.6 million anti-Semitic tweets were posted, 19,253 directed at journalists). nytimes.com |
| 2016.10.19 | Anti-Defamation League reports a surge in anti-Semitic Twitter posts, many from Trump supporters, during the presidential campaign. nytimes.com (See also Jewish Americans) |
| 2016.11.06 | Trump campaign ad uses coded anti-semitic language and the images of prominent Jews to promote conspiracy theory that Jews are secretly controlling political and economic systems around the world. youtube.com |
| 2016.11.12 | Churches in Indiana and Maryland are vandalized with tags on the walls depicting a swastika, an anti-gay slur and "Heil Trump." usatoday.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2016.11.19 | White supremacist Richard Spencer, an advocate of "peaceful ethnic cleansing," salutes Trump victory with a Nazi gesture. theatlantic.com (See also Racism) The Southern Poverty Law Center refers to Spencer as a white supremacist and "professional racist in khakis." |
| 2016.12.05 | New York City Police Department reports a 115 percent increase in bias crimes since Trump's election, the bulk of them anti-Semitic. observer.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.01.09 | Jewish centers and schools in at least five U.S. states evacuated due to bomb threats. businessinsider.com (See also Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.01.11 | Trump: "Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to 'leak' into the public. One last shot at me. Are we living in Nazi Germany?" twitter.com |
| 2017.01.20 | Trump's embraces use of "America First" slogan despite its long anti-Semitic and isolationist history. latimes.com (See also Jewish Americans, Fascism) |
| 2017.01.27 | Trump statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day makes no mention of Jews or the Jewish community twitter.com (See also Jewish Americans) Last year, Obama said "We are all Jews." |
| 2017.01.29 | Reince Priebus defends Trump's omission of the Jewish people and anti-Semitism from his statement on the Holocaust. huffingtonpost.com (See also Jewish Americans, Reince Preibus) Reince says that, "the Jewish people... suffered in World War II", characterizing Jews as one of many groups targeted during the Holocaust, rather than the specific focus of that genocidal campaign. |
| 2017.02.02 | 48 U.S. Jewish centers received bomb threats in past month: 'Why is no one talking about this?' haaretz.com The coordinated threats started on the East Coast and spread west two weeks ago, culminating in the evacuation of 14 centers on Tuesday. U.S. Jews insist the threats should not be dismissed. |
| 2017.02.02 | Trump plans to remove Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups from terror watch list and focus solely on Islamic groups. reuters.com (See also First 100 Days, Executive Orders, Racism) |
| 2017.02.02 | White House blocks release of State Department Holocaust statement recognizing Jewish victims and issues one that doesn't mention Jews at all. politico.com (See also First 100 Days, Jewish Americans) |
| 2017.02.05 | When passengers on a Manhattan train spotted hateful messages scrawled on a subway map, they joined together to get rid of them. mobile.nytimes.com (See also First 100 Days, Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.15 | Trump is asked a question about anti-Semitism during a joint meeting with Israeli PM. His answer is a word salad bragging about his victory with the electoral college. washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days, Israel, Jewish Americans) |
| 2017.02.16 | In response to a question about threats to Jewish centers nationwide, President Donald Trump called a Jewish reporter a liar and told him to sit down. Trump said, "I am the least anti-Semitic person." Later Trump said anti-Semitism was coming from the other side. cnn.com |
| 2017.02.18 | Trump seems to suggest that the recent bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish community centers and cemeteries across the country might be false flags (i.e. that Jewish people made the bomb threats to falsely create the impression that Jews are being targeted in hate crimes), according to a Democratic attorney general who met with him—and one of Trump’s top advisers suggested the culprits could be Democrats. washingtonpost.com (See also Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.02.20 | At least 10 Jewish community centers across the United States are targeted with bomb threats on President's Day, for the fourth time in five weeks. forward.com (See also Jewish Americans, Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.02.20 | In response to another wave of bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers around the country, Ivanka Trump tweeted, "America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC." twitter.com |
| 2017.02.21 | American Jews Confront a Wave of Bomb Threats at Jewish Community Centers around the country. In total, the national JCC has tallied calls to 53 JCCs in 26 states in the last two months. theatlantic.com (See also Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.02.21 | Anne Frank Center director calls Trump's statement on threats and vandalism against Jewish Americans "a pathetic asterisk of condescension after weeks in which he and his staff have committed grotesque acts and omissions reflecting Antisemitism, yet day after day have refused to apologize and correct the record." washingtonpost.com (See also First 100 Days, Jewish Americans) |
| 2017.02.21 | Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect says Trump's acknowledgment of anti-Semitism is not enough. washingtonpost.com (See also Jewish Americans, First 100 Days) The center's head said in a statement, “The President’s sudden acknowledgment is a Band-Aid on the cancer of Antisemitism that has infected his own Administration.” |
| 2017.02.21 | Steven Goldstein, Executive Director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect issued a strong statement to Trump following his remarks that Antisemitism is "horrible" and "has to stop." facebook.com MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE ACKNOWLEGMENT OF #Antisemitism TODAY IS NOT ENOUGH. |
| 2017.02.21 | The gravesites of more than 170 Jews were vandalized at a cemetery in University City, Mo., sometime over the weekend. post-gazette.com |
| 2017.02.21 | Trump denounces anti-Semitism saying, "Anti-semitism is horrible and it's going to stop. It has to stop." nbcnews.com |
| 2017.02.21 | Trump finally condemns anti-semitic threats and vandalism after more than 100 headstones at the Jewish cemetery in St Louis, MO. are damaged on President's Day. theguardian.com (See also First 100 Days, Jewish Americans, Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.22 | In reponse to Spicer, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect responded with three specific actions that Trump could take to demonstrate his commitment to ending anti-Semitism, including firing Stephen Bannon. facebook.com (See also Sean Spicer) |
| 2017.02.22 | In response to comments from the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect regarding Trump's statement that anti-Semitism is "horrible" and should "stop," Sean Spicer said, "I wish the Anne Frank Center had praised Donald Trump for fighting anti-Semitism'" independent.co.uk (See also Sean Spicer) |
| 2017.02.22 | The Anti-Defamation League receives a bomb threat at its New York headquarters, marking the latest in a series of threats targeting U.S. Jewish organizations. theatlantic.com (See also Jewish Americans, Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.23 | Authorities in Israel arrest a suspect in the wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers in the U.S. He is an 18-year-old Jewish man with dual Israeli and American citizenship. nytimes.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.24 | Hate crimes in New York City, particularly against Jews, have spiked in the past 100 days, a trend police officials say is probably connected to ethnic bias and xenophobia that emerged during the 2016 election campaign. bloomberg.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.27 | Bomb threats forced evacuations at Jewish schools and community centers in 11 states Monday, with the Jewish Community Center Association confirming threats in states ranging from Florida to Michigan. npr.org (See also Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.02.27 | FBI joins the investigation of vandalism at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia, where an estimated 75 to 100 headstones were toppled, to determine whether a hate crime occurred. cnn.com (See also Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.02.28 | In a conversation with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Trump decries bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers and the desecration of two Jewish cemeteries, but he also suggests the incidents could be false flags (committed by Jews to raise sympathy for themselves). washingtonpost.com (See also Hate Crimes, #Reviewed) |
| 2017.02.28 | Trump begins his address to a joint session of Congress by condemning the recent wave of bomb threats at Jewish community centers and the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries. npr.org (See also Racism, Islamophobia, Hate Crimes) |
| 2017.03.02 | Propublica provides a map and timeline of 89 bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers, schools, and organizations in the U.S. Between January 1 and March 2. projects.propublica.org (See also Hate Crimes, Trump Effect) |
| 2017.03.08 | ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project announces it has recorded more than 330 reports of anti-Semitic incidents during a three-month span, from early November to early February. propublica.org (See also Jewish Americans) |
Analysis
Trump has close ties to white supremacist (also called alt-right) groups, who are enthusiastically supporting his presidency. He uses specific language in campaign ads, speeches, and on Twitter, which are intended to garner the support of white nationalists and to embolden both hate speech and action. (See more here: Hate Crimes.)
Assessments
The presence of orthodox Jews like Ivanka and Jared Trump in the administration has led some to propose that Trump can not possibly be anti-Semitic. On the other hand, his senior advisor, Stephen Bannon, is a white nationalist, who said that he didn't want his children going to school with Jews. In an opinion piece, historian Suzanne Schneider clarifies the uneasy partnership between anti-Semitism and Zionism, both represent a form of nationalism:
The alliance of right-wing Zionists and the “alt-right” should not be viewed as an abnormality, but as the meeting of quite compatible outlooks that assert — each in its own way - that the world will be secure only once we all retreat to our various plots of ancestral land.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Five Myths about Anti-Semitism, Yair Rosenberg addresses several important misconceptions about modern anti-Semitism:
Five Myths:
Anti-Semitism largely subsided after the Holocaust.
Anti-Semitism comes predominantly from the right.
Criticism of Israel is generally anti-Semitic.
Criticism of Israel cannot be anti-Semitic.
Anti-Semitism mostly threatens Jews.