Dave Sifry, Vice President of the Center for Technology and Society at the Anti-Defamation League, said during KJF 2020 that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. reached 2,107 in 2019, a 12% increase over the previous year.
This is the highest number on record of observations that the Anti-Defamation League has registered since 1979.
In 2019, 1,127 instances of harassment were reported, a 6% increase over a year before, 919 vandalism incidents, including vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, a 19% increase over 2018.
“On top of that, we found that along with physical problems, when, for example, people experienced violent acts or assaults on property in the street, there was also an increase in hatred, harassment and bullying on the Internet," Sifry informed.
According to his data, 33% of Jews who took part in the survey said they were subjected to online harassment. 20 per cent of those were severely harassed, although this figure is now slightly lower than in 2019.
“Harassment in general has increased significantly in all different groups. This also applies to Muslim respondents, Latin Americans and African Americans,” Sifry said.
In his opinion, social networks play a big role in the growth of anti-Semitism.
“It’s really disappointing. Algorithms as they exist now have been designed to increase the so-called engagement. Attracting you into a social network, you are forced to “like”, to share some things. Existence of such algorithms is the most crying shame in the biggest social networking platform (Facebook),” Sifry stated.
He explained that social networks lead to such groups as extremist, far right, conspiracy theory groups. And social media allow the spread of hate. This is the origin for massive spread of such anti-Semitic stereotypes as “Jews are controlling the world” or “George Soros – a Jewish Puppet Master”.
As previously reported, the President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine Boris Lozhkin, announcing the second Kiev Jewish Forum 2020, noted that Ukraine ranks last in the anti-Semitism level among the Central European countries, and Jewish organizations are becoming more and more important in the life of Ukrainian society.