The massacre of 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue was the deadliest attack on Jews in the U.S. — but in a nation where anti-Semitic assaults have skyrocketed in the last two years, it was hardly an aberration.
And the picture was no less disturbing in New York, where more and more Jews have found themselves in the cross hairs of hate, law enforcement officials say.
As of Oct. 7, the NYPD counted 116 bias incidents against Jews this year. That’s three fewer than than the same time period in 2017 — but the Anti-Defamation League points out that the 2018 number already includes 12 anti-Semitic assaults, which is up from 11 all of last year.
Two assaults were reported in Brooklyn this month.
On Oct. 14, an Orthodox Jewish man was beaten by a livery cab driver at a traffic intersection in Borough Park.
A day later, a black teenager chased a Jewish man in Crown Heights and hit him in the back and shoulders with a stick.
Across the country, the Anti-Defamation League identified 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents in 2017, up from 1,267 in 2016, and also reported a major increase in anti-Semitic harassment online.
While Jews account for about 2% of the U.S. population, they make up more than half of the Americans targeted by hate crimes committed due to religious bias, according to FBI data.
Two notable deadly attacks against Jews happened in the last decade.
In June 2009, a gunman who had anti-Semitic writings in his car killed a security guard while trying to enter the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. And in April 2014, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. fatally shot a 69-year-old man and his 14-year-old grandson at a Jewish community center in suburban Kansas City, then killed a woman at the nearby Village Shalom retirement center.
Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, said anti-Semitism if often the tie that binds across multiple U.S. hate groups, including neo-Nazis, white nationalists, skinheads and others.
“They believe Jews are pulling the strings behind bad things happening in this country,” Beirich said.
Many synagogues and Jewish organizations in the U.S. have ramped up security measures in response to increased threats over the years — but Saturday’s synagogue shooting was uncharted territory.
“It is simply unconscionable for Jews to be targeted during worship on a Sabbath morning, and unthinkable that it would happen in the United States of America in this day and age,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement after the rampage.
“Unfortunately, this violence occurs at time when ADL has reported a historic increase in both anti-Semitic incidents and anti-Semitic online harassment.”
President Trump and his wife plan to visit Pittsburgh on Tuesday to honor the Tree of Life synagogue victims, even though some Jewish leaders said he’s “not welcome.”
Bend the Arc, a progressive Jewish group, said Trump shoulders some of the blame for making America hate again.
“For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement,” 11 members of the organization’s Pittsburgh chapter said in a letter urging Trump to stay away.
With Reuven Blau, Rocco Parascandola and News Wire Services
