As the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL’s) annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents finds U.S. incidents surging more than one-third in 2016 and spiking 86% in the first quarter of 2017, ADL’s Southwest Region, based in Houston, reports similar increases.
The Southwest Region received reports of 16 incidents in 2016 and more than 25 incidents by mid-March of 2017, marking a 50 percent increase in the first quarter of this year over all of last year.
As of April 25, ADL’s Southwest Region logged 29 reports of anti-Semitic incidents in 2017. Many involved verbal harassment of Jewish students and students being subjected to Nazi salutes and swastikas in school. Other incidents include vandalism of a synagogue and a religious object on someone’s home, anti-Semitic phone messages, anti-Semitic and racist flyers, and bomb threats. ADL’s Southwest Region covers southern Texas from El Paso to Orange and all points south, with the exception of Austin and its surrounding counties.
Southwest Region 2017 incident reports include:
- Eight reports of swastikas
- Six reports of verbal harassment
- Four reports of property damage
- Four reports of anti-Semitic e-mails or social media posts
- Four reports of anti-Semitic flyers
- Two reports of Nazi salutes
- One report of alleged employment discrimination
Some targets of anti-Semitism were subjected to more than one type of harassment, such as verbal harassment and alleged discrimination, or verbal harassment and swastikas.
“This is a disturbing trend,” said ADL Associate Director Dena Marks. “Clearly, ADL is needed more than ever, and we will redouble our efforts to fight anti-Semitism and all types of discrimination.”