Global antisemitism: New York, Chicago, Kanye, Iran, US colleges top report’s worst incidents

A leading human rights organization—the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center—on Thursday named soaring anti-Jewish hate crimes in Democratic controlled Chicago and New York and on elite U.S. college campuses as some of the top ten worst outbreaks of antisemitism in 2022. 

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, presented the list titled "2022 Top Ten Worst Global Anti-Semitic Incidents," in Jerusalem Thursday.

"Parents and students at a Jewish girls’ school for parent-teacher conferences witnessed a Chicago man threaten to ‘burn a rabbi in a gas oven’ just days before the Hanukkah festival. The man was arrested and held on bail. Other incidents involving obviously religious people occurred in Jewish neighborhoods during 2022," wrote the Wiesenthal experts of the sixth spot of the list. 

Wiesenthal noted hate incidents increased by 71% in Chicago, and the main targets were Jews and African-Americans. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is named after the legendary Nazi-hunter who survived the Holocaust.  

Number six on the Wiesenthal List of worst outbreaks of antisemitism also noted that "Crime is way up in New York City including hate crimes. Physical attacks on openly identifiable Orthodox Jews in New York City are the highest they’ve been in decades. A scourge of anti-Semitic attacks are plaguing the nation’s largest city. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, especially in Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, have been beaten, spat upon, their hats torn off their heads, and cursed in a barrage of attacks over the last year." 

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The Wiesenthal document listed a running bill of particulars covering violent antisemitism in America’s largest Jewish community in New York City. "In November, two men, Christopher Brown, and Matthew Mahrer, were arrested by the FBI/NYPD Joint Terrorism Task Force and the NYPD Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau for threatening an armed attack on a synagogue. The two were taken into custody before they could act on their plan to murder members of the local Jewish community. They were found carrying several weapons including a Glock semi-automatic handgun, and a ghost gun with an extended 30-roundmagazine and laser sight." 

"This was not an idle threat," New York Mayor Eric Adams said, adding, "This was a real threat." 

America’s university system was not immune from the rapidly spreading virus of antisemitism. A number of U.S. universities in Massachusetts, New York, California, Arizona and New Jersey secured the seventh spot for outbreaks of antisemitism. 

The Wiesenthal Center cited a report by the group AMCHA Initiative, which is dedicated to combating antisemitism in institutions of higher education, that "there were more incidents of anti-Semitism at Harvard University…than at any other U.S. university in 2022. Some of the telling examples of alleged antisemitism at Harvard include ‘the tearing down of Harvard Hillel posters, anti-Israel stickers attached to tubs of kosher hummus in the dining halls, and the posting of anti-Harvard College Israel Trek signs.’" 

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Also at Harvard "Attempts were also made to disrupt pro-Israel speakers. A swastika was found in an undergraduate dorm, the school paper endorsed the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee erected a wall with Holocaust imagery replete with anti-Semitic statements." 

The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation of nine student groups at University of California Berkeley’s law school. "The groups amended their by-laws to prohibit Zionists or anyone who supports Israel from speaking at events on campus, "wrote Wiesenthal. 

The City University of New York (CUNY) was permeated with an anti-Jewish atmosphere in 2022, according to Wiesenthal. 

"In 2022, a toxic environment beset Jewish students and professors leading to lawsuits by Jewish professors, hearings at the New York City Council and a U.S. Department of Education investigation. A joint Hillel-ADL survey finds that one-third of the Jewish students at CUNY experienced on-campus anti-Semitism, leading some to drop out," wrote Wiesenthal. 

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Rapper Kayne West, also known as Ye, garnered the number one spot on the list because he "used his unparalleled social media influence to morph these historic [anti-Jewish] tropes into a firestorm of real-time anti-Semitism—absorbed by millions, and inspiring acts of hate against Jews—living and dead." 

Ye fell under the rubric "The Influencers" on the list. NBA star Kyrie Irving, who has 22.5 million social media followers, was also listed in "The Influencers’ section because he "shared a promotion of an anti-Semitic movie." 

Iran’s regime was listed as number four. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been branded antisemitic for "keeping with the best traditions of the Nazis and Soviet Communists, the Iranian Regime’s serial genocidal and theological hatred of Jews is led by a so-called Center for Jewish Studies. Iran’s Center for Jewish Studies has published more than 1,000 blatantly anti-Semitic essays weaving a toxic mix of theology, historic hatred of Jews, and anti-Israel screeds on behalf of the nefarious Khamenei regime." 

Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei has denied the Holocaust and repeatedly urged the destruction of the Jewish state. 

Spot five on the list went to  Malik Akram, a British Pakistani who "On Shabbat morning January 15th, 2022... traveled thousands of miles to target a small synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Akram, took four hostages at Congregation Beth Israel. Akram was demanding the release of an al Qaeda operative convicted of attempted murder of Americans. Hours later, Akram was killed by an FBI rescue team and none of the hostages were injured." 

The president of the Palestinian Authority was ranked number 3 on the list because Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of having committed ‘50 Holocausts’  while standing alongside German Chancellor Scholz during a press conference in Berlin. Wiesenthal also took Scholz to task because he "only condemned the remarks the next day."  

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Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, whose father survived the Holocaust, said about Abbas, "History will not forgive him." Wiesenthal cited German bureaucrats Michael Blume and Gerhard Ulrich, who are tasked with fighting antisemitism but are accused of stoking antisemitism. Blume was classified as antisemitic in the Wiesenthal’s 2021 list for his alleged activities against Jews and Israel. 

Wiesenthal wrote, "Jewish leaders are deeply worried over the continuing hate crimes and the fact that two of Germany’s antisemitism czars are themselves accused of anti-Semitism. Also troubling is Germany’s continuing close economic ties with the Holocaust-denying, genocide-threatening Iranian regime." 

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Widespread antisemitism in Germany has jolted the country’s tiny Jewish population of under 100,000 from a population of roughly 84 million.   

Semen Gorelik, chairman of a Jewish community in the state of Brandenburg declared in a "blistering public letter that he is leaving Germany for Israel and urged German Jews to follow suit due to the rising tide of anti-Semitism in the country," said Wiesenthal.