Anti Semitic Acts

Anti-Semitic acts fell 11% last year, the largest one-year drop in a decade, according to a survey by a Jewish defense organization. A total of 1,843 acts of violence, threats, harassment or vandalism directed against Jews or Jewish institutions were reported during 1995, the Anti-Defamation League found in its annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States.

The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that it had tallied a sharp uptick in anti-Semitic incidents in California last year, many of them involving taunts, threats and insults by adolescents and teenagers. In one typical example, the league said, a Jewish middle school teacher in Los Angeles found swastikas drawn on her classroom door and a note, also featuring swastikas, that read, "You're next." "These are not necessarily kids who are filled with hatred in their hearts and mean to be malicious," said Amanda Susskind, regional director for the organization.

The University of Southern California, its president, James H. Zumberge, and its administration are to be commended for responding quickly and unambiguously in the face of anti-Semitic activity on the part of a few members of the fraternity and sorority community. The lesson that the university provided to its college community and the City of Los Angeles as a whole is in welcome contrast to the bigotry acquired by these few students in their formative years. MARSHALL B. GROSSMAN Los Angeles Grossman is chair of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles.

The president of the University of California and leaders of a dozen prominent American Jewish organizations are in an unusual public dispute about the extent of anti-Semitism on UC campuses and the university's response to it. In a letter to UC President Mark G. Yudof, such groups as the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the national governing bodies of Conservative and Orthodox Judaism have criticized the university's reaction to anti-Semitic acts...

For the first time in three years, anti-Semitic acts increased across the United States in 1998, the Anti-Defamation League said Wednesday. While the number of incidents involving harassment, threat or assault remained virtually unchanged, with 896 incidents reported, compared to 898 in 1997, the 1998 audit of anti-Semitic incidents showed an increase in vandalism at synagogues, Jewish schools, community centers and other communal institutions and private property.

Reported anti-Jewish attacks jumped 60% in Canada last year to their highest level in 25 years, according to an audit released this month by B'nai B'rith Canada. The audit found that 459 incidents of anti-Semitism were reported in 2002, a year in which synagogues in Toronto, Saskatoon and Quebec City were torched and Jews were singled out for abuse by both radical Muslims and white supremacists.

An increase in anti-Semitic vandalism throughout Glendale since a recent visit to the city by avowed racist and convicted church-bomber J. D. Stoner has prompted Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich to press for investigations by city and county officials. In a statement issued before a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting last week, Antonovich said Stoner's visit to Glendale "apparently has triggered a series of anti-Semitic acts of vandalism."

The Jewish Defense League this week will begin patrolling two San Fernando Valley neighborhoods that have been the scene of recent anti-Semitic incidents, JDL leader Irv Rubin said Tuesday. Rubin said that the activist Jewish organization decided to start the patrols after the burglary and vandalizing last month of a Van Nuys Hebrew school and the recent painting of swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on the Panorama City home of Russian-Jewish immigrants.

Watching the news one night, Elizabeth Comper was horrified by a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in her hometown of Toronto: swastikas drawn on doors and cars, defiled gravestones, ugly graffiti. So the 59-year-old former elementary-school teacher cornered her husband in the bathroom the next morning and insisted he do something. As president and CEO of the Bank of Montreal, Tony Comper, 60, is one of the most influential financial leaders in North America.

President Jacques Chirac announced a tough policy to combat anti-Semitism, saying an attack on a Jew is an attack on the entire nation. The president spoke at a news conference that followed a weekend arson attack on a Jewish school.

Reported anti-Jewish attacks jumped 60% in Canada last year to their highest level in 25 years, according to an audit released this month by B'nai B'rith Canada. The audit found that 459 incidents of anti-Semitism were reported in 2002, a year in which synagogues in Toronto, Saskatoon and Quebec City were torched and Jews were singled out for abuse by both radical Muslims and white supremacists.

In the cold drizzle of a dreary morning, Michel Mimouni looked on the charred ruins of the first synagogue so severely damaged in France since the Nazi occupation and struggled sadly to understand. "It's always against the Jews that such things happen," said Mimouni, 62, president of the Jewish congregation of 30 families in this gritty working-class suburb southwest of Paris. "I try to figure out why, but I can't."

For the first time in three years, anti-Semitic acts increased across the United States in 1998, the Anti-Defamation League said Wednesday. While the number of incidents involving harassment, threat or assault remained virtually unchanged, with 896 incidents reported, compared to 898 in 1997, the 1998 audit of anti-Semitic incidents showed an increase in vandalism at synagogues, Jewish schools, community centers and other communal institutions and private property.

Anti-Semitic acts fell 11% last year, the largest one-year drop in a decade, according to a survey by a Jewish defense organization. A total of 1,843 acts of violence, threats, harassment or vandalism directed against Jews or Jewish institutions were reported during 1995, the Anti-Defamation League found in its annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States.