American Editor's-in-Chief, your silence is fueling antisemitism

• Published date: 22 March 2024
• Author: ZVIKA KLEIN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2017, the American media covered every tiny antisemitic incident at the beginning of its newscast, as if it were the most pressing issue. It was easy for mainstream media to blame that new Republican president, who wasn't politically correct, for the spreading of antisemitism. But since antisemitism rates have just become increasingly more dramatic, only local and Jewish media outlets typically cover it, whereas mainstream national US media currently rarely provides coverage of antisemitic incidents

Notably, the ADL's annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents revealed a significant surge in antisemitic activities in the US during 2017 – 1,986 – marking a 57% increase from the previous year. This uptick represented the most considerable single-year rise since the ADL began monitoring such incidents in 1979, and the total number of incidents ranks as the second highest ever recorded.

In 2022, the ADL reported 3,697 antisemitic incidents in the US, marking a 36% increase from 2021's 2,717 incidents and setting a new record since the organization began its tracking. At the beginning of 2024, the ADL reported a significant surge in antisemitic incidents, with 3,283 occurrences between October 7 and January 7, marking a 361% increase from the 712 incidents reported during the same period the previous year.

A simple search via Google Trends shows a substantial increase in the use of the word "antisemitism" in the US since being monitored in 2004. Google Trends displays the data from these searches on a scale from one to 100. Numbers represent search interest relative to the highest point on the chart for the given region and time. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term. A value of 50 means that the term is half as popular. A score of 0 means there was not enough data for this term.

During 2004 and 2005, the word "antisemitism" was at four to five points (out of 100), but in November 2023, it rose from 15 points in the previous month to 100 points, displaying the highest ever since Google began monitoring search words.

The word "Jews" also reached an all-time high in October 2023 with 100 points, while in August 2022, it was only at 22 points.

Just a few days ago, a man was arrested for arson after setting fire to a local rabbi's Las Olas Chabad Jewish Center in Fort Lauderdale. On the same day, a fight between pro-Palestinian protesters and an Israel supporter took place outside the David Posnack Jewish...