the FBI announced this morning that it
caught the person responsible for the
threats made against New Jersey
synagogues saying in a meeting with the
governor and New Jersey Law Enforcement
this morning that the man holds radical
extremist views many have come out in
support of the Jewish Community
following the threats including Governor
Murphy who said in a statement today we
will take any and every threat with the
utmost seriousness and we will stand up
and stand shoulder to shoulder with our
Jewish congregations but this threat is
just one in a Litany of recent
anti-semitic messages coming from
far-right extremists to public figures I
have with me now Rabbi David Levy to
share his perspective on the impact of
the situation it's part of exploring
hate our ongoing series that reports on
anti-Semitism racism and extremism Rabbi
thanks so much for being here with us
tonight you were on the call this
morning with the FBI the governor's team
law enforcement obviously this is still
an evolving situation in terms of what
we know but what have you seen in terms
of efforts to really Shore up the safety
around synagogues across the state well
thank you I have to say I was on the
call with the governor and with law
enforcement and I have to express our
deepest gratitude to the way that
federal state county and local law
enforcement have dealt with this threat
the fact that they did the unusual and
truly rare move of making that broad
public statement over social media
immediately to make sure that houses of
worship that were actually
getting ready for evening worship that
day that Jewish schools were aware of
the possible security threat and could
take could take action was this threat
something that kept people away from
synagogues yesterday or did you see the
Jewish Community persevere add law
enforcement support like you just
mentioned
people are feeling much more secure
today because of the amazing work of the
FBI and all of their Partners in
bringing the situation to a resolution
in identifying uh
the person who was the source of these
threats and as they said to us this
morning mitigating the threat so in
recent days weeks months even years
we've seen just an increase in
anti-semitic rhetoric threats being made
in towns on college campuses white
nationalists being emboldened even
recent comments from people like Kanye
West and Kyrie Irving what is the
feeling right now within the Jewish
Community watching this language really
start to become more commonplace
to be honest we're very disturbed by it
Rising anti-Semitism is having a
powerful impact on the Jewish Community
we know from our surveys our most recent
survey of both the American Jewish
community and the general community that
well over 80 percent of the Jewish
Community feels that anti-Semitism has
risen over the past five years that's
really compared to around 40 percent of
the general community so we have a gap
in knowledge about how much
anti-Semitism has risen we know from the
FBI reports that well
close to 60 percent
of religious based bias crimes Target
the Jewish Community that's compared to
the fact that the Jewish Community makes
up only about two percent of the
population uh it's it's a incredible
problem it's a toxicity
that is infecting our society right now
I can tell you that from our survey one
in four Jews says that over the last
year they have experienced anti-Semitism
personally either online or through
verbal interaction or even through
physical interactions
um
anti-semitism's On The Rise everywhere
yeah it's really disheartening to hear
but Rabbi David Levy thank you so much
for coming on talking about this
important topic with us thank you for
having me
leadership support for exploring hate is
provided by the Sylvia a and Simon B
poyda programming endowment to fight
anti-Semitism with additional major
funding from Sue and Edgar wachenheim
III the Peter G Peterson and Joan Gans
Cooney fund and Patty ask with Kenner
additional support is provided by Nancy
and Morris W Offutt and Josh Weston
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