Acts of discrimination and outright hatred toward Jews increased by 57 percent in the United States during 2017 â Donald Trumpâs first year in the Oval Office â according to the (ADL). It was the largest single-year increase since the ADL began tracking hate data.
Those numbers include the alt-right siege of Charlottesville that resulted in the death of an anti-hate protester. This yearâs figures â not yet released by the organization â will include the October massacre of 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
While there are no simple answers to this disturbing trend, hate is âlegitimized by the failure to respond,â said ¶¶Òőapp President Thomas Bailey at âAnti-Semitism Today: Why are Hate Crimes on the Rise in the U.S.?â, a symposium held at the College in late December. The event, organized by Harriet Jackson, a staff member in TCâs Office of External Affairs, exemplified TCâs core mission, Bailey said, which is âto gather the best scholars to understand the causes and remediesâ for social ills.
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David Harris, CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC)
Thomas Bailey, President of ¶¶Òőapp
Noah Drezner, Associate Professor of Higher & Postsecondary Education
Panelists included Noah Drezner, Associate TC Professor of Higher & Postsecondary Education; Kevin Feinberg, (MA â93), Senior Program Director (NY) of the non-profit Facing History and Ourselves; Mehnaz Afridi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College; and Stephanie Merkrebs, Director of Campus Affairs & Special Projects for the Anti-Defamation League.
Co-sponsored by TCâs Office of the Vice President for Diversity & Community Affairs, and , âAnti-Semitism Todayâ brought together advocates from academia and the non-profit world to do just that.
David Harris, the CEO of the directed the symposiumâs attention to the internet forums where, in his opinion, discussion of hate speech needs to start.
âUnless the United States is ready to tackle the issue of hatred, racism and antisemitism on social media platforms, we are sitting ducks,â said Harris in remarks that opened the event.
The son of Holocaust survivors, Harris reminded the audience that âthe âfinal solutionâ began with words.â He attributed the rise in antisemitism, both in the United States and Europe, to a de-emphasis of Holocaust education in history classrooms.
Hate is âlegitimized by the failure to respond.â
âTC President Thomas Bailey
If âcurrent trendsâ prevail, Harris predicted, âknowledge of the Holocaust will continue to decline over the next ten to fifteen years. And, given what we know, that knowledge is an insurance policy against antisemitism.â
A panel discussion led by Associate TC Professor of Higher & Postsecondary Education Noah Drezner placed the rise in acts of hate against Jews in a larger context of intolerance.
âHate is generally connected,â said the ADLâs Stephanie Merkrebs, Director of Campus Affairs & Special Projects for the (ADL). âWhen one person hates, and they have a target of hate, they probably have more than one target. And when a community is targeted with hate, communities that are observing that hate feel that they might be next.â
âKnowledge of the Holocaust will continue to decline over the next ten to fifteen years. And, given what we know, that knowledge is an insurance policy against antisemitism.â
âDavid Harris, CEO of The American Jewish Committee
Kevin Feinberg, (MA â93), Senior Program Director (NY) of the non-profit educational organization , argued that, by definition, bigotry can never occur in isolation.
âWhen one person is attacked, we are all attacked,â he said. âIf we ignore antisemitism, then we ignore racism. And if we ignore racism, then we ignore antisemitism.â
, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the at Manhattan College, said that religious discord on campus, which she is sometimes called upon to mediate, frequently arises from a fundamental insensitivity to the historical abominations generated by intolerance.
Afridi, who, as a Muslim academic, has made it her mission to use education â and her scholarship on the Holocaust, in particular â to fight antisemitism, said it is incumbent on educators to initiate conversations that put ignorance and hatred into context for young people who may not otherwise understand the framework of an indifferent remark, gesture or act.
âThere are a lot of stories buried by prejudice and hate,â said Afridi. âAnd these are the kinds of things we should be talking about.â Indeed, universities must âcreate an inclusive environment for groups to collectively talk about what they are experiencing,â she said.
Feinberg agreed, but made it plain that doing so carries some very real risks. âWe need to have conversations across boundaries â and thatâs tough, because we canât be afraid of saying the wrong thing.â
âThere are a lot of stories buried by prejudice and hate. And these are the kinds of things we should be talking about.â
âMehnaz Afridi, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Manhattan College
Afridi praised TC for braving that danger, calling the symposium âthe first act of awareness about anti-Semitism.â
Jackson, the daughter of a German Holocaust survivor and a former academic who has put together scholarly conferences on antisemitism at Columbia University and the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, said she felt compelled to organize âAntisemitism Todayâ after the killings in Charlottesville and Pittsburgh. She first raised the idea with Janice Robinson, Vice President for Diversity and Community Affairs, at a âsafe spaceâ that Robinsonâs office organized at TC for Jews and others who were grieving after the shootings in Pittsburgh. âJanice immediately agreed to sponsor the event,â Jackson says. âIt was a real a testament to the inclusive and caring nature of the TC community.â