Nevada, Colorado see spike in antisemitic incidents, reflecting national trend

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Editor’s notice: As a warning, this story accommodates dialogue of a disturbing incident of antisemitic harassment.

A brand new report exhibits the variety of antisemitic incidents in the US surged in 2021, and that features a sharp rise in some Mountain West states.

The Anti-Defamation League’s annual audit of antisemitic incidents counted greater than 2,700 acts of harassment, vandalism and assaults focusing on Jewish People. That’s the very best quantity on file.

In Nevada, ADL recorded 36 incidents – a 64% soar from the earlier yr. Most had been instances of harassment, and plenty of befell in faculties, says Jolie Brislin of ADL Nevada.

“We noticed college students being attacked in Washoe County faculties,” Brislin stated. “We had college students put ‘Heil Hitler’ on their arms and go as much as different college students, and actually attempt to intimidate them.”

Brislin says the rise in antisemitic instances is because of a number of elements, together with the divided political local weather and the rise of on-line hate. And she or he doesn’t anticipate these numbers to drop this yr.

“We discover ourselves in a polarized setting,” she stated. “After we discover that there is a political divide, after we discover that the peak of the analogies of Jews and COVID, sadly, incidents will solely enhance from that.”

Colorado noticed 92 incidents, a 53% enhance and the eighth-most of any state. Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming all ranked amongst states with the fewest variety of incidents.

This story was produced by the Mountain West Information Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, the O’Connor Heart for the Rocky Mountain West in Montana, KUNC in Colorado, KUNM in New Mexico, with help from affiliate stations throughout the area. Funding for the Mountain West Information Bureau is supplied partly by the Company for Public Broadcasting.

The photograph included on this story is licensed beneath Flickr Artistic Commons.