JNS publishes a weekly listing of antisemitic incidents recorded and found by Jewish, pro-Jewish and pro-Israel organizations; national and international news; and social media. By the Anti-Defamation League’s count, an average of seven instances of varying measure occur daily in the United States. (Dates refer to when the news was reported, not when the events took place.) Also included are news items detailing efforts to combat antisemitism and research anti-Jewish bigotry.
Aug. 26
Antisemitic messages appeared on lawns in Turlock, Calif. Racist insults and swastikas were found on homes and cars in a mostly black neighborhood in Montgomery, Ala. Kent police in England arrested a man suspected of vandalizing a Jewish cemetery (see Aug. 24). After the mayor of Newburgh, N.Y., met with Chassidic landlords, an antisemitic poster was found in the city.
Aug. 27
The Goyim Defense League distributed antisemitic fliers in Macon, Ga. Museums are using “holograms, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to allow visitors to have simulated ‘conversations’ with Holocaust survivors and hear the words of enslaved people,” Axios reported. “Tolerating antisemitism is not the way for Democrats to get moral authority back,” per a Baltimore Sun op-ed.
Aug. 28
The Parliament of Victoria, in Australia, is considering banning public Nazi salutes. Swastikas were found in Bethesda, Md.; Chicago; Orlando, Fla.; and Jackson, N.J. Airbnb banned a Maine woman over her ties to a neo-Nazi. Jew-haters are evil and not necessarily uneducated, wrote Jay Greene, of the Heritage Foundation.
Aug. 29
The USC Shoah Foundation announced speakers for its lecture series this fall on antisemitism. Australia’s Anti-Defamation Commission opposes a card game featuring offensive statements about incest, necrophilia and the Holocaust. Germany unveiled plans for a German-Polish House in Berlin, which would, in part, commemorate 3 million Jews who were murdered during World War II.
Aug. 30
An Ontario antiques shop is no longer selling a Nazi uniform, following backlash. Police at the University of California, Berkeley are investigating shellfish dumped outside a Jewish fraternity. Police officers in Cambridgeshire, England, arrested two people suspected of carving swastikas on dead pigeons. The Combat Antisemitism Movement released a new video on the Goyim Defense League. The NYPD arrested a man, who used a bullhorn to yell “Hitler should have finished the job” in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Aug. 31
The ADL criticized Meta for escalating Holocaust denial content to its oversight board rather than removing it immediately. B’nai Brith Canada asked the Muslim Association of Canada to uninvite an antisemitic speaker from its annual conference. An American student was killed in Bangkok following a drunken argument with a friend, who had drawn a swastika on his own forehead. A swastika was found in an elementary-school bathroom in Sacramento, Calif.; antisemitic literature on windshields in Cincinnati; and Goyim Defense League materials in Weatherford, Texas. Australian collectors worry that banned displays and sales of Nazi materials will decrease their value. Finland plans to criminalize Holocaust denial and, potentially, ban public displays of swastikas. The convicted Pittsburgh synagogue shooter arrived at federal death row at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.
Sept. 1
A swastika was found burned into a picnic table at a park in Steamboat Springs, Colo. In England, a 17-year-old admitted to a string of antisemitic vandalism, and prosecutors convicted a neo-Nazi organizer of a fascist fitness group of owning a terrorism manual. Having faced intense backlash for its prior sale of items connected to a collector with Nazi ties, Christie’s canceled an upcoming sale of jewels that belonged to Helmut Horten’s widow. A Nazi drama, which earned three stars in The Guardian, “has weirdly comic overtones.”
On this day, in 1939, World War II began.
