The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) released its 2018 Audit on Anti-Semitic Incidents on April 30, 2019. Published annually since 1979, the audit presents data on harassment, assaults, and vandalism experienced by Jews and Jewish institutions in the United States over the course of each year.
ADL recorded 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents across the three categories during 2018, including a massacre by a White Supremacist gunman at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. While the total number of incidents decreased by 5% since 2017 (the highest year on record), the number of assaults more than doubled and the total number still 48% higher than 2016 and 99% higher than 2015.
The timing of the Audit’s release – just three days after the deadly anti-Semitic shooting at the Poway synagogue, outside of San Diego – and shortly before Yom HaShoah, the Jewish holiday that commemorates the Holocaust – suggests that the trends cited in the audit are continuing into 2019 and reminds us of the profound need to combat anti-Semitism as well as other forms of bigotry, discrimination, and hate. ADL works toward a world where all groups who have experienced discrimination are treated fairly through legislation, advocacy, partnerships, and education.
The Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation has been grateful to support the ADL for many years at the national level, and more recently through a partnership with ADL’s Michigan Region. We encourage our colleagues, partners, and neighbors to learn more about the ADL, review the 2018 Audit, engage with its interactive H.E.A.T. Map of extremist and anti-Semitic incidents around the country between 2016-2018, and consider supporting this important and impactful organization.
