ADL Articles

The Nation of Islam (NOI) held its annual Saviours’ Day conference in Chicago the weekend of February 24–26, serving once again as a platform for vitriolic antisemitism and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry. Saviours’ Day 2023 marked the annual event’s return to a large-scale arena setting for the first time in three years; the NOI held smaller, semi-virtual conferences during the intervening pandemic-era years. NOI speakers injected familiar antisemitic and conspiratorial…

Several incidents in 2022, including a 12-hour hostage crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, with an Islamist extremist perpetrator, demonstrate the ongoing threat of Islamist extremism and are a reminder that the U.S. faces a diverse set of extremist threats. While the number of individuals arrested in connection to crimes motivated by Islamist extremism has declined significantly in recent years after peaking in 2015, three violent Islamist attacks in 2022 illustrate this ideology…

Incidents of antisemitism remain at historic levels in the United States. In fact, antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish institutions jumped 61 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to  ADL’s 2021 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. Based on preliminary data, the 2022 numbers will tell a similar story.   Fears about antisemitism have been on the rise since a mass shooter claimed 11 lives at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in October 2018, the deadliest antisemitic…

On December 3, 2022, the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) tracked several extremist events targeting the LGBTQ+ community. This wave of bigoted action from the Proud Boys, the virulently antisemitic Goyim Defense League and two white supremacist groups, comes just weeks after five people were murdered and at least 19 injured in a shooting at an LGBTQ+ club in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Earlier this week, a Texas man was arrested for making death threats against a Boston physician who provides…

In the short time since Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October 2022, the platform has taken several steps that have empowered extremists. Chief among them: the decision to sell the “verified” blue check mark and grant “amnesty” to suspended Twitter accounts. In the past few weeks, the ADL noted both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts, a troubling situation that will likely get worse, given…

On Tuesday, November 22, 2022, former President Donald Trump hosted white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump’s willingness to associate with figures who have repeatedly spread antisemitic and white supremacist tropes is deeply concerning and has not gone unnoticed by extremists. Fuentes, a white supremacist and rabid misogynist who attended the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in…

The 2022 U.S. midterm elections stirred up false narratives about secret and powerful entities committing widespread election fraud. These included old and new theories – and sometimes a combination of the two. Ten days after election day, their impact continues to be felt. On Saturday, November 12, protesters gathered at the elections office in Maricopa County, Arizona for what they called the “Patriots Rise Up” rally. Protesters, angry about ongoing ballot counting in…

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) advocates and anti-Israel activists are increasingly using the social components of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts as tools to protest against Israeli policies. By targeting Israel and companies doing business with Israel, these activists are politicizing these important investment and corporate engagement tools. While there are valid and varied views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…

Since early October 2022, Ye – the highly influential artist, record producer, and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West – has drawn media attention for inflammatory antisemitic and conspiratorial remarks.

Unverified claims and conspiracy theories about election fraud continue to spread both online and offline ahead of the 2022 midterms. As election day approaches, recognizing what these claims mean and why they are untrue can help the public combat the harmful narratives that motivate anti-democratic tactics and erode faith in the election process.     Conspiracy theorists who sow doubt in the democratic process will often reveal new “evidence of fraud” from…

Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has publicly espoused numerous antisemitic and racist tropes in recent weeks. Extremists across the ideological spectrum have embraced his recent comments.

Two years after Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the false claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen” continues to inform America’s political landscape. As the 2022 midterms draw near, individuals animated by these false claims—including election deniers, QAnon adherents, conspiracy theorists and extremists—are attempting to insert themselves and their beliefs into the electoral process. Their goal: to prevent the…

On October 12, a 19-year-old man opened fire in front of an LGBTQ+ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia, killing two people and injuring a third before he was found dead the following morning. A review of a screed shared on Twitter by the shooter a few hours before the attack, as well as his broader social media presence, makes it clear that he harbored anti-LGBTQ+ and antisemitic beliefs, and subscribed to an accelerationist, white supremacist worldview. The ADL Center on Extremism’s…

Intro The ADL Center on Extremism (COE) has identified 40 white supremacist artists with a presence on Spotify, the world’s largest music streaming platform. Music has long been an effective way to radicalize extremists, allowing artists to both entertain and indoctrinate vulnerable listeners. At a time of increasing hate-motivated extremist violence, Spotify is not only allowing the racism and incitement of white supremacist music, it is actively promoting that content on its own…

Far-right and extremist voices have launched a significant attack against the LGBTQ+ community in 2021-2022, demonizing people via repeated false claims that LGBTQ+ people are “pedophiles” who are “grooming” children in order to abuse them. This false and malicious narrative has been weaponized to label the LGBTQ+ community as “groomers” and has fueled a slew of hostile legislation and policies aimed at erasing the discussion of LGBTQ+ related issues in…

WESPAC (Westchester People’s Action Coalition) Foundation is a progressive nonprofit organization based in White Plains, New York that funds and supports community-based and activist initiatives. While bolstering numerous laudable causes that strive for racial, reproductive and environmental justice, among other efforts, WESPAC also serves as a major node in the funding and administration of campus anti-Israel, anti-Zionist and pro-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) groups,…

Update: In late August 2022, Boston Children’s Hospital received a bomb threat via phone call, forcing the hospital and the surrounding area to go on lockdown. A bomb squad was unable to locate any explosive device and determined the threat to be a hoax. On September 15, 2022, law enforcement officials announced that they arrested the suspect responsible: 37-year-old Catherine Leavy of Westfield, MA, who referred to hospital employees as “sickos”&nbsp…

In response to the recent fighting between Israel and terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), anti-Zionist groups around the world mobilized to protest Israel’s military operations targeting PIJ sites inside Gaza, with many groups specifically expressing outrage over the number of civilian casualties there. According to reports, PIJ misfires were responsible for the deaths of at least eight Palestinian civilians, and the Israeli military acknowledged responsibility for the…

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, denying Americans’ constitutional right to abortion. Immediately, antisemites and extremists saw the decision as an opportunity to attack abortion rights and to link their hatred of abortion to their antisemitism. Antisemites took to online platforms, some pushing age-old antisemitic tropes of Jewish control and conspiracy, while others demonized Judaism as a baby-killing religion. This piece explores the phenomenon&nbsp…