World's Oldest Hate Increases As We Enter Another Year

Getting into the season, here's sufganiyot (donuts) representing each officially documented antisemitic hate crime recorded in the United States of America just over this past year (as of October 2011) -

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000

We'd need a lot of oil to fry those up. Perhaps even enough to run America's energy needs for a week? If only that energy could be directed towards aims other than the centuries-old game of hating Jews, of course. The age-old problem, eh? The world's oldest disease.

Jump with me below the fold.

The Audit has never included the thousands of anti-Semitic events and expressions occurring in cyberspace, as it is virtually impossible to quantify.

Nor, obviously, has it ever included the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of incidents of harassment and intimidation which occur in and on public school property across our nation every year. Not to mention across the world, of course.

It's certainly not just the US...

Belgium.

February 22, 2011 –--Antwerp -- A Jewish man riding a bicycle was punched in the face. When he asked the attacker why he hit him, the assailant said, “Because you’re a Jew.”

France.

June 18, 2011 -- Villeurbane -- A 21-year-old identifiably Jewish man was assaulted in a suburb of Lyon. He was accosted by an individual who said, “turn around and go back, you son-of-a-bitch Jew.” The attacker left, then returned with a hammer and hit the victim on the head. A dozen other assailants joined in, kicking the victim and hitting him with a nightstick. The victim was hospitalized with head and other injuries.

May 7, 2011 -- Marseilles -- Three Jewish boys were beaten during a soccer match by a dozen attackers, who shouted “dirty Jews, we’re going to f--- your corpses.” One boy sustained a serious eye injury; the other two were only slightly injured.

Greece.

May 15, 2011 -- Volos -- “Jews you will die” and “Jewish (expletive), the gallows are coming” were among numerous anti-Semitic threats scrawled on the Volos synagogue and Jewish community center. Ultra-nationalist slogans, “Greece,” and crosses were also spray-painted on the synagogue’s exterior walls.

Netherlands.

May 14, 2011 -- Leek -- “C18,” a neo-Nazi slogan, and a swastika were spray-painted on the door of a Jewish school, which also houses a museum to the Jews of Leek who were deported and murdered during the Holocaust.

Switzerland.

February 23, 2011 -- Lausanne -- Upon leaving a synagogue, a rabbi’s assistant was attacked by three individuals. The assailants asked if he was Jewish. When he responded positively, the three shouted anti-Semitic epithets, beat him with their fists and kicked him. Passers by intervened and called the police, who managed to arrest two of the assailants.

The FBI, though its statistics unfortunately do not note that Jews are as much a people as a religion, also clearly record the discrepancy in hate crimes committed here. Of all categories under "religion," officially documented anti-Jewish hate crimes make up a full 67%-plus some, of all committed.

Just a month ago, I was back home in New Jersey (after these statistics, in fact) and a spree of antisemitic hate crimes broke out not far from where I stayed and where my parents and sisters currently still live, in fact...

Several Jewish-owned shops in Highland Park, N.J., were vandalized.

Windows were smashed Tuesday night at five stores owned by Jewish merchants, according to the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office. The targeted businesses included kosher restaurants, Judaica shops and a hardware store.

I once had keys made at that shop.

These followed up, from the Tablet link above -

The Wednesday morning attacks occurred only days after a brick was thrown through the window of the nearby Rutgers Hillel Saturday night, which Hillel executive director Andrew Getraer -- who lives in Highland Park -- said broke a computer and shattered glass across the office, and which is being investigated by the police. Further troubling for Getraer, who saw the Raritan Avenue damage on his way to work Wednesday, a Rutgers student active in the Jewish student community, who wears a yarmulke, was allegedly confronted in Highland Park’s kosher Dunkin’ Donuts Tuesday night by a man who identified himself as a neo-Nazi and referenced Kristallnacht -- the night the Nazis destroyed Jewish-owned shops -- while being thrown out by employees. The incident was reported to the police, as well as the university and the Anti-Defamation League.

This stuff isn't even included in this year's report.

And closer to where I grew up, in North Jersey, there has also been this just since I left...

Police in New Jersey are looking for the vandals who painted swastikas outside of synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood.

An interfaith show of solidarity for vandalized Maywood synagogue

A show of solidarity after a recent act of anti-Semitic vandalism gave fresh meaning to an ancient celebration Tuesday night as people of diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds descended on Temple Beth Israel in Maywood to usher in the eight-day festival of Hanukkah.

The holiday celebrates religious freedom, symbolized in the story of a war-ravaged temple’s tiny oil lamp that miraculously burned on for eight days instead of one. But the event also was billed as an evening of “Spreading Light in Maywood” — a response to a still-unsolved hate attack earlier this month on the borough’s only synagogue.

“I was surprised that it happened here, but it could happen anywhere,” said Dan Kirsch, a former chairman of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Bergen County. “People can come out in the dark, in the dark of their hearts. … But I was not surprised by the response.”

Kirsch was referring to the night of Dec. 10 or the early morning of Dec. 11, when someone spray-painted swastikas and hate messages at the temple, on West Magnolia Street, police said. Hate crimes are rare in Maywood, and police are still investigating, said Sgt. Mark Gillies.

Despite being only 2% of the population, according to the FBI hate crimes against Jews make up 67% of all those committed.

This even occurs in Brooklyn.

And again.

And again.

And again.

The 2.3% increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents follows several years of decline. Although no single factor explains this slight increase, it occurs within the context of the continued expansion of online anti-Semitism and hate. While, on the one hand, this provides an outlet for people who may have otherwise expressed themselves in non-virtual environments, on the other hand this may be leading to a coarsening of attitudes and beliefs that has infected real world behavior.

As the calendar turns, please consider adding "I will keep a mind to fight antisemitism in all of its forms, classic and contemporary, whenever I come across it" to your New Year's resolutions.

Thanks...