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Strong Majority of American Jews Feel ‘Less Safe’ After Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre, New Survey Finds
A pro-Hamas demonstrator takes the street during a massive rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: Jacob Lee Green/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
An overwhelming majority of American Jews have reported feeling less safe after Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, according to a new survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
Released on Thursday as part of AJC’s “State of Antisemitism in America 2023 Report,” the survey found that over three in four American Jews who had heard about the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel said the onslaught made them feel a great deal (20 percent), a fair amount (23 percent), or a little (34 percent) less safe as a Jewish person in the United States.
According to the findings, American Jews have dealt with their concerns about safety by carefully managing their ventures into the public, avoiding wearing any apparel or items of clothing that would indicate their Jewish identity, and staying clear of neighborhoods where they are likely to be victims of antisemitic behavior. AJC added that Jews over the age of 30 were more likely to express heightened concerns about their safety post-Oct. 7 than younger Jews, 80 percent compared to 67 percent under age 30.
“It is sadly not surprising that the vast majority of American Jews are feeling less safe today than they did before Oct. 7,” AJC CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement. “In the days, weeks, and months since the terror attack, the world has seen a staggering increase in antisemitic speech, anti-Jewish violence, and demonstrations glorifying Hamas terrorists. How are Jews supposed to feel secure when so many side with the murderers in the wake of the deadliest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust?”
On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel from Gaza, murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 240 others as hostages.
AJC’s survey of Jewish adults was conducted by the independent research firm SSRS from Oct. 5 to Nov. 21.
The release of the results coincided with new data and reports showing that concerns about rising antisemitic hatred in the US are empirically supported.
This week, authorities in Colorado reported that dozens of bomb threats were sent to synagogues, as well as public schools, across the state. Meanwhile, the city of Philadelphia experienced a record high number of antisemitic hate crimes in 2023, surging by 237 percent, according to data from the California State University, San Bernardino’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. The news outlet Axios was first to report on the anti-Jewish hate crime surge in Philadelphia.
“It is a very scary time to be a Jew anywhere in the world, but specifically in the US and there is a lot to do as far as countering antisemitism and keeping America as a beacon of hope as it has always been for Jews,” a survey participant told the American Jewish Committee. “This recent terrorist attack by Hamas has shaken us to the core.”
Another participant said, “I am shocked by the sizable vocal minority that is supporting Hamas. In many ways, I don’t feel comfortable living in my country for the first time in my life.”
Antisemitic incidents in the US have surged by 360 percent since Oct. 7, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which counted 3,283 in the ensuing three months. That total included 553 vandalisms and 60 assaults. Educational institutions in the US have also seen a rise in antisemitic incidents — 505 took place on college campuses and 246 at K-12 schools.
“In this difficult moment, antisemitism is spreading and mutating in alarming ways,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. “This onslaught of hate includes a dramatic increase in fake bomb threats that disrupt services at synagogues and put communities on edge across the country.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Strong Majority of American Jews Feel ‘Less Safe’ After Hamas’ Oct. 7 Massacre, New Survey Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Mississauga vigil for Hamas leader was called off, but the Jewish community says the mayor should apologize for defending it
The group said members were going to be volunteering on an urgent food security issue instead.
The post Mississauga vigil for Hamas leader was called off, but the Jewish community says the mayor should apologize for defending it appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Amsterdam Police Identify 45 Suspects Linked to Violent, Antisemitic Attack Targeting Israeli Soccer Fans
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
Dutch police said on Sunday that they have identified and are investigating 45 suspects of whom they have images in connection to the violent attacks targeting Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam earlier this month.
“Because of the seriousness of the crimes, but also because of the social impact, we immediately scaled up to a special investigation team,” Dutch police chief Janny Knol said in a statement.
All 45 suspects are being probed for serious violent crimes, according to Dutch media. Nine of them have been arrested so far and remain in police custody, authorities said on Sunday, including a suspect who reported to police on Saturday night after his unblurred photo was released to the public.
On Friday, police said they were investigating 29 more suspects, including two who ultimately turned themselves in and have been arrested. Unblurred photos of the some of the other suspects have been online since Friday night and more images of suspects will be released soon, according to a police spokesperson cited by the NL Times.
Following a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch team Ajax in Amsterdam on Nov. 7, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian gangs violently attacked Israelis who attended the soccer game. The premeditated and coordinated attack took place in various parts of the city late that night and into the early hours of Nov. 8. Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv were chased, run over by cars, assaulted, and taunted with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian slogans such as “Free Palestine.” Five people were reportedly hospitalized for injuries.
Police are “looking at all crimes committed in the run-up to the game and in its aftermath,” Knol said after the violence erupted in the Dutch capital.
A Dutch court last week arraigned eight suspects, including minors, who were arrested in connection to the violent attack in Amsterdam, the NL Times reported. Those suspects include a 21-year-old man from Almelo, a city in eastern Netherlands; a 37-year-old man from Amsterdam suspected of pulling someone off his bicycle; two men, ages 19 and 21, who were arrested over the weekend; and two 26-year-old men, one from Amsterdam and one from Utrecht, who are suspected of publishing posts on social media that incited violence against the Israeli soccer fans.
The post Amsterdam Police Identify 45 Suspects Linked to Violent, Antisemitic Attack Targeting Israeli Soccer Fans first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tufts University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine Until 2027
A statue of the school’s mascot, “Jumbo,” stands on the campus of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, US, Nov. 27, 2017. Photo: Brian Snyder via Reuters Connect
Tufts University in Massachusetts has extended a suspension of its Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter until January 2027, a school spokesman confirmed with The Algemeiner on Monday.
Tufts first temporarily deactivated the group in October, citing “multiple violations of university policies,” including SJP’s promoting violence and calling on peers to participate. According to a disciplinary letter shared by SJP, days ahead of a celebratory demonstration it planned for the anniversary of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, the group posted a picture of “individuals with assault rifles, instructing students to ‘Join the Student Intifada’ and to ‘escalate’” during its event. The inciting content left school officials “no choice but to impose interim suspension,” the university said in the letter.
SJP has said that the university’s adding 27 months to its initial suspension represents “an attempt to fracture the strength of our movement” and accused it of “bankrolling” conflicts in the Middle East. Additionally, in a gesture which aimed, unsuccessfully, to turn the tables on Tufts, SJP proclaimed its “formal break and disaffiliation from tufts university [sic].”
It continued, “As the zionist [sic] genocide of Palestine and Lebanon has escalated over the past year, tufts [sic] in turn has sought to repress our solidarity movement,” the group charged. “The administration has threatened to suspend individuals over Instagram posts and vigils …We are done justifying our action against this university’s role in the genocide of the Palestinian people. We will not apologize.”
Tufts University spokesman Patrick Collins defended the school’s decision in a lengthy statement shared with The Algemeiner. It explained that SJP has violated nearly a dozen prohibitions on gambling, communicating violent threats, and unauthorized assembly.
“The complaint is now resolved, resulting in a disciplinary suspension that takes into account the group’s actions, their impact on other community members, the group’s repeated refusal to cooperate with university policies and expectations, and its refusal to follow through on sanctions arising from previous conduct policy violations,” Collins wrote. “The suspension also follows multiple attempts over the last year by the university’s student life staff and other administrators to work and communicate with SJP and its leaders, who have rejected these efforts.”
Collins noted that SJP can apply for re-recognition by the university, pending its compliance with certain “terms,” which include observing its suspension, something it has failed to do so far. If it is reinstated by the university, SJP will be placed on a “one-year probationary period,” during which school officials will determine if it has truly reformed. He added that what SJP is experiencing is not, as the group has maintained, personal or ideological.
“The Student Code of Conduct for the Schools of Arts & Sciences and Engineering considers and addresses student and student organization behavior regardless of their viewpoints,” he continued. “Individuals and groups that violate university policies face a range of disciplinary actions, up to and including suspension or expulsion from the university for individuals, and suspension or permanent revocation of university recognition for student organizations.”
SJP’s suspension comes amid concern that it and similar pro-Hamas organizations are using college campuses as recruiting grounds for domestic terrorist operations.
“The movement contains militant elements pushing it toward a wider, more severe campaign focused on property destruction and violence properly described as domestic terrorism,” Capital Research Center researcher Ryan Mauro wrote in a groundbreaking report, titled “Marching Toward Violence: The Domestic Anti-Israeli Protest Movement,” which was published last week. “It demands the ‘dismantlement’ of America’s ‘colonialist,’ ‘imperialist,’ or ‘capitalist,’ system, often calling for the US to be abolished as a country.”
Drawing on statements issued and actions taken by SJP and its collaborators, Mauro made the case that toolkits published by SJP herald Hamas for perpetrating mass casualties of civilians; SJP has endorsed Iran’s attacks on Israel as well as its stated intention to overturn the US-led world order; and other groups under its umbrella have called on followers to “Bring the Intifada Home.” Such activities, the report explained, accelerated after Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, which pro-Hamas groups perceived as an inflection point in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an opportunity. By flooding the internet and college campuses with agitprop and staging events — protests or vandalisms — they hope to manufacture a critical mass of youth support for their ideas, thus creating an army of revolutionaries willing to adopt Hamas’s aims as their own.
“Groups in the pro-terrorism, anti-Israel movement co-exist as our concentric circles of increasing malevolence,” Mauro explained. “Groups in the outermost circle avoid risks as they recruit new protest members and seek to integrate as many political causes as possible under the anti-Israel umbrella … Some militants aspire to incorporate the campaign into a broader wear on law enforcement if not an insurgency.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Tufts University Suspends Students for Justice in Palestine Until 2027 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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