February 22, 2021 On February 5, 2021, the FBI arrested Christian Michael Mackey, an alleged member of neo-Nazi  group Iron Youth, on charges of an unlawful sale of a firearm. Mackey allegedly attempted to sell his gun to someone identified to him as a known felon, but Mackey seemed primarily concerned that the buyer was “based”— which in this case means that he subscribes to white supremacist beliefs. According to the affidavit, Mackey allegedly incited others in an…

February 19, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Authorities in Poland, Russia, Hungary and some lawmakers in Britain’s Labour Party used antisemitism for political means, according to a new ADL report. ADL has positively identified 212 of the estimated 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, revealing a wide array of domestic extremists were among those who unleashed their fury on legislators and Capitol police, leading to five deaths and scores of…

February 12, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Google's YouTube is still recommending extremist and white supremacist videos to viewers already susceptible to racial hatred, a new report from ADL found. Iranian schools are teaching antisemitism, hatred and conspiratorial material in their textbooks, according to a comprehensive analysis by ADL. Police in Spokane, WA are looking for the person who painted swastikas on the Temple Beth Shalom building and a Holocaust memorial. Read on for more…

February 05, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 In the aftermath of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, ADL launched PROTECT -- a “whole of society” offensive, comprising federal and state governments and the tech sector, to combat domestic terrorism. A senior State Department official announced that the Biden administration “embraces and champions” an internationally recognized definition of antisemitism. Despite urging from ADL, civil rights activists and…

November 18, 2020 By: Shaya Lerner The Holocaust will be forever remembered as one of the most horrific events of the 20th century. The murder of six million Jews and millions of others carried out by the Nazis and their collaborators was the largest recorded genocide in modern history. There is simply no equivalent event, historical or current, that compares with it.  Despite this, over the past few months, both prior to and after the Presidential election, there have been an…

October 15, 2020 Nearly half of American adults experience online harassment and nearly one third experience severe harassment, but society still struggles with understanding the deep impact of online hate. Too often, we see “online hate” contrasted with “real world violence.” Trust us: to victims and targets of swatting, doxing, cyberstalking, and cyberharassment, the abuse they experience online is very real.  We know that digital abuse pushes targets offline…

September 26, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The nation continues to mourn the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court and a pioneering advocate for women’s rights. The late Justice will be the first woman to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol on Friday. A grand jury in Jefferson County, Ky., has indicted a former Louisville police detective on three charges of wanton endangerment in the March shooting that resulted in the death of 26-year…

September 11, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Top officials with the Department of Homeland Security directed agency analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy, a whistle-blower complaint released on Wednesday said. Vice President Mike Pence and top officials from the Trump campaign are slated to attend a Montana fundraiser next week hosted by a couple who have expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. A Palestinian woman who played a part in the hijackings of two…

August 20, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 An FBI Twitter account tweeted out a link to a PDF containing the antisemitic “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,” as well as FBI documents related to it, with no other context. President Trump on Wednesday offered encouragement to proponents of QAnon, a viral and dangerous conspiracy theory. According to a new study, Facebook “actively promotes further Holocaust-denial content to that user” and “has been unwilling…

August 20, 2020 By David Andrew Weinberg Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced a historic agreement on August 13th to move toward full normalization of relations, the first such accord between the State of Israel and an Arab state since 1994.  However, peace always has its opponents, and this agreement is no exception. Whenever Israel and Arab governments take important steps to engage and reconcile with each other, extremists throughout the region routinely demonize both…

August 07, 2020 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Twenty state attorneys general called on Facebook to better prevent messages of hate, bias and disinformation from spreading, and said the company needed to provide more help to users facing online abuse. The leader of a white supremacist group was arrested in Weatherford, Texas on Saturday after police said he and two other men placed stickers on county property. And the global Jewish community continues to face rising antisemitism due to the…