ADL Articles

October 18, 2017 White supremacist and alt right leader Richard Spencer will speak at the University of Florida in Gainesville at 2:30 pm on Thursday, October 19. In anticipation of the event, Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency, and has activated the state’s National Guard. University officials estimate they will spend at least $500,000 on security for the event. Spencer’s past speeches have attracted a number of his fellow white supremacists, and this is…

October 03, 2017 In August 2016, then-NFL San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to take a stand about racial injustice by refusing to stand for the National Anthem at football games. He spent much of the season either sitting or kneeling during the anthem. Fast forward to the 2017 football season where the controversy emerged again when on a Sunday in September, more than 200 NFL players took a knee during the Anthem.  This recent controversy over NFL players and…

September 28, 2017 Following the September 26 attack in the West Bank settlement of Har Adar, in which a Palestinian gunman killed three Israelis, extremist groups have been posting on various forums to celebrate the attacks and incite violence against Israel and Jews worldwide.  While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, many have posted lauding the attacker and calling him “a heroic martyr,” as Hamas stated on the day of the attack. The Al-Tawhid…

September 27, 2017 During a September appearance at a mosque in Chicago, Nation of Islam student minister Wesley Muhammad claimed that Jews and the U.S. government are engaged in a “Pot Plot” to emasculate black men and turn them into homosexuals by distributing specially modified versions of marijuana. Muhammad has been dabbling in this conspiracy theory since 2016, and proposed a similar version in a June 2017 interview on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club, a nationwide…

September 20, 2017 Article Highlights: • Older white supremacists are adopting the slang of the alt right in an attempt to sound edgy and attract younger members. • Some white supremacists have created websites designed specifically to attract alt right adherents. • For racist neo-Confederates, the alt right offers a significant potential source of members, provided they can be converted to white Southern nationalism instead of a more universal form of white…

September 18, 2017 By: Marvin D. Nathan, National Chair       Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO & National Director Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is both a celebratory holiday and a time for serious introspection. It is a celebration of the creation of the Universe and of G-d's sovereignty over that Universe. And, it is a time to look into oneself to examine where one has been and where one is going. In this spirit, we offer on behalf of ADL, the…

August 30, 2017 The violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which featured anti-Semitic chants and imagery on full display, has fueled concern about whether the kind of hatred and violence seen in Charlottesville could inspire copycat incidents or acts of hate against Jews or Jewish institutions in other parts of the country. While it is impossible to directly link anti-Semitic incidents seen elsewhere to the horrific displays of hate witnessed in Charlottesville…

August 29, 2017 Adults and children alike are grappling to make sense of current events. Discussions of racism, anti-Semitism and social injustice have become increasingly contentious as images of white supremacists carrying torches and chanting hateful rhetoric in Charlottesville fill our social media feeds and television screens. Children are attuned to these conversations and disturbing images of violence, hate and incivility, and are seeking comfort and answers from teachers, family…

August 29, 2017 In response to the recent events in Charlottesville, Facing History and Ourselves, Teaching Tolerance, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Federation of Teachers, and EduColor teamed up to support educators as they return to the classroom. Hosted and led by AFT, we asked educators what topics they were most concerned about and addressed them in a co-hosted webinar, “When Hate Is in the Headlines: Resources for K–12 Educators.” Together, we offered…

August 24, 2017 Over the past several months, in Boston, Charlottesville, Berkeley, and beyond, many thousands of peaceful counter-protesters have taken to the streets to speak out against the hateful ideology of white supremacists and other bigots. Among those counter-protesters, a small number of antifa, or “anti-fascists,” have encouraged -- and sometimes actively engaged in -- violence. The antifa concept originated in Europe in the 1960s and 1970s. The idea behind it…

August 22, 2017 Updated: August 28, 2017 On Friday, August 25, President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio. The following is part of ADL's statement condemning the President's decision: "No person in this country is above the law. Arpaio was convicted by a federal judge, and has never shown any remorse for his unlawful acts and his unabashed bigotry. The president’s decision to pardon him is inexcusable."   President Trump’s August 22 rally in Phoenix, Arizona, is being billed…

August 18, 2017 By Lauren Jones Civil Rights National Counsel at the Anti-Defamation League On August 17, 1915 a mob dragged Leo Frank, a Jewish superintendent at a pencil factory in Georgia, from his prison cell, drove him to a place where others stood ready with a noose, and lynched him. They called themselves the Knights of Mary Phagan. A crowd of men, women and children looked on and cheered. Within the local community, the members of the lynch mob were well-known. But their…

August 17, 2017 On August 13th, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released the 17th issue of Inspire magazine featuring instructions from the “AQ-Chef,” including “a simple method for targeting trains…[involving] derailing a train from the railroad by placing an object on the tracks.” The magazine supplements the instructions with a list of priority targets, ranking “Jewish interests everywhere” first. While this is not the first time al-Qaeda…

August 15, 2017 Alongside the racism, nativism and xenophobia on display at Unite the Right, the event was also an expression of the animating power of anti-Semitism.  Marchers threw Nazi salutes as they waved swastika flags, proudly wore swastika pins and shirts, and shouted “sieg heil!”  A sign carried by rally-goers warned that the “Jewish media is going down;” another declared that “Jews are Satan’s children.”  A white…