ADL Articles

December 30, 2019 A Hanukkah party on December 28, 2019 in Monsey, New York, was shattered when a man entered a local rabbi’s home armed with a large knife and began stabbing people. The attack left five injured, one critically. The following day, police in Ramapo, New York, charged Grafton Thomas of Greenwood Lake, New York, with five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary. Thomas pleaded not guilty at his December 29 arraignment. On Monday, December 30,…

December 13, 2019 On December 10, 2019, David N. Anderson and Francine Graham allegedly shot and killed Jersey City Police Detective Joseph Seals after he approached them in the Bayview cemetery. The perpetrators then drove through Jersey City, bypassing other buildings and pedestrians before stopping outside the JC Kosher Supermarket, where Graham allegedly fired shots into the establishment, killing three civilians inside the store and injuring another. The pair then barricaded themselves…

December 13, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 Two gunmen motivated by anti-Semitism and anti-law enforcement beliefs attacked a Kosher supermarket in Jersey City on Tuesday, killing four people. President Trump signed an executive order that would ensure incidents of anti-Semitism be treated under federal as vigorously as other forms of discrimination. West Virginia fired three state employees and suspended more than 30 others after a photo surfaced showing a recent graduating class of correctional…

December 02, 2019 Telegram, the online social networking app, may not be a household name in the U.S. like Twitter or Facebook, but with well over 200 million users, it has a significant audience. And it is gaining popularity. Telegram has become a very popular online gathering place for the international white supremacist community and other extremist groups who have been displaced or banned from more popular sites. The platform, which is a cloud-based chat and group messaging app,…

November 08, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 An avowed white supremacist in Colorado was arrested after federal investigators uncovered a plot to bomb an historic synagogue. Campus officials at East Tennessee University are opening an investigation after signs saying “It’s okay to be white”— a popular white supremacist slogan — appeared around campus. A man in Milwaukee is facing felony hate-crime charges for allegedly throwing acid on a Latino man because of his…

November 06, 2019 “Pills” feature prominently in the online chat rooms and forums dedicated to right-wing extremism. These are not actual pharmaceuticals; instead, each “pill” sends a message about a person’s level of dedication to an extremist ideology or cause. Are they just beginning to learn about an ideology, or have they progressed further to embrace a nihilistic, potentially violent mindset? While online posts about “pills” can help outside…

November 05, 2019 Update: February 26, 2021: A federal court sentenced Richard Holzer to 19.5 years in prison.  Update: October 15, 2020:  The Justice Department announced that Richard Holzer, 28, pleaded guilty to federal hate crime and explosives charges for plotting to blow up the Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Pueblo, Colorado. According to a DOJ press release, Holzer faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for the hate crime charge…

October 18, 2019 White supremacists continue to pose a serious threat to Jews in the United States – as they do to African Americans, Muslim Americans, Latinx Americans, immigrants, LGBTQ Americans and other communities. In the year since the deadly rampage at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, at least 12 white supremacists have been arrested for their alleged roles in terrorist plots, attacks or threats against the Jewish community specifically. Many of the offenders were…

September 27, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 The “okay” hand sign, the Dylann Roof ‘bowlcut’, and 34 other extremist symbols have been added to ADL’s hate symbols database. The Department of Homeland Security unveiled a new strategy that places a priority on domestic terrorism, including the threat posed by the far-right. And the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahatir Mohamad, who has a history of making deeply offensive and anti-Semitic statements, was invited to…

September 09, 2019 New anti-Semitic trolling efforts have emerged on several online platforms in recent weeks, with users weaponizing lists of Jews by variously posting their images, personal information such as names, places of employment, and schools they attend, as well as links to the targets’ social media accounts. Lists of Jews in any form on white supremacist platforms is alarming, especially given the ongoing threats of anti-Semitic violence and targeting of synagogues and…

August 23, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 President Trump accused Jews who vote for Democrats of having “great disloyalty” – invoking a centuries old anti-Semitic trope. An avowed white nationalist was arrested for threatening to attack a Jewish community center in Youngstown, OH. And in California, members of a high school water polo team were seen on video giving the Nazi salute and singing a Nazi song. Read on for more on these headlines, news you can use to fight hate, and…

August 16, 2019 Update: On January 14, 2020, Conor Climo entered a plea agreement to weapons charges for possession of an unregistered firearm with the court. He faces a sentence from 2 years to 30 months.  Conor Climo appeared in court on February 10, 2020, to plead guilty to the charges. On August 8, 2019, the FBI arrested Conor Climo, a Las Vegas-based security guard, on weapons charges for possession of an unregistered firearm. According to analysis by ADL’s Center on…

August 15, 2019         View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Anti-Defamation League (@adl_national) on Aug 15, 2019 at 11:54am PDT Update: As of September 4, 21 of the following channels remain active on YouTube. An analysis by ADL’s Center on Extremism found that a…

June 14, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Organizers of the “DC Dyke March” attempted to implement a ban on Jewish Pride flags, claiming they too closely resemble the flag of Israel. In Detroit, a small group of neo-Nazis carrying weapons disrupted an LGBTQ Pride march by spewing homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic slurs at participants and pretending to defile an Israeli flag. A gay man in Atlanta was shot and killed in what police are classifying as a hate crime. Read on for…

June 13, 2019 Key Highlights In 2018, 13 individuals were arrested for domestic criminal activity motivated by Islamist extremism. Four of the 13 arrests were linked to terror plots, one of which resulted in the murder of a high school student. All 13 individuals arrested for domestic Islamist extremist activity in 2018 were lawfully in the United States at the time of their arrest. Eleven of these individuals were U.S. citizens, one was a lawful permanent resident originally from…

June 11, 2019 On Saturday, June 8, ten neo-Nazis associated with the National Socialist Movement protested Detroit’s Motor City Pride Festival, carrying guns and shouting homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs. NSM leader Burt Colucci and Aric Lemieux, NSM’s South Michigan chapter leader, headed up the protest, which included participants from Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Michigan. Lemieux expressed his intention to protest the festival months ago, and other group…

June 02, 2019 Remarks by Jonathan Greenblatt CEO and National Director, Anti-Defamation League To the ADL National Leadership Summit June 2, 2019, Washington, D.C. (As prepared for delivery) Thank you, Esta, for that kind introduction, and welcome to our 2019 National Leadership Summit. I am so glad to be here. Its been an exhausting year and a hard year, and to that end I want to ask you to pause for a moment of silence to honor the 12 people who were killed in…

May 23, 2019 UPDATE: A large law enforcement contingent kept the peace as only nine HSK members and associates participated in Saturday’s rally. Yards away, separated by a fence and a wall of police, hundreds of counter-protesters drowned out the barely visible Klan group with a united and peaceful message against hate. The Honorable Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (HSK), a small Madison, Indiana-based Klan group led by Derek Dean Eaglin and Kate Nicole Eaglin, has scheduled…

May 17, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Six days after being kicked off Facebook, notorious anti-Semite and leader of the Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan was invited to speak at a church in Chicago, where he delivered his typical brand of bigotry and anti-Jewish hatred. The Harvard Lampoon, a satirical magazine on campus, was forced to apologize after publishing an inappropriate and doctored photograph of Anne Frank in swimwear. On Capitol Hill, ADL and others call on Congress and the…