(Jewish Group) Covid quarantine didn't stop antisemitic attacks from rising to near-historic highs
Even in a year when people were mostly quarantined, hate found a way. As the medical community raced to create vaccines and places of business adapted to remote work, bigots innovated, as well. One of the painful side effects of the pandemic that raged across America was the emergence of new uses of technology to weaponize harassment and new conspiracy theories to promote hate.
In our annual Anti-Defamation League Audit of Antisemitic Incidents for the 2020 calendar year, released Tuesday, we found that Jews in the U.S. reported a disturbing 2,024 incidents of antisemitism last year, a rate of harassment 10 percent higher than in the year before and one of the highest overall in the last five years. Many of the incidents featured these technological and conspiratorial innovations.
Our audit paid particular attention to the emergence of Zoombombing, the grotesque practice of disrupting Zoom meetings or other online video events with antisemitic bile, racism or the display of swastikas. We found 196 antisemitic attacks in which racists intentionally disrupted live videoconferences. Of those incidents, 114 targeted Jewish institutions, such as schools or synagogues.
In one instance last April, a high school's online class was disrupted by an unknown participant who bombarded the teacher with messages in the comments section that read, "Burn like a Jew." In October, someone barged into a virtual class at a school in New York City and posted messages that read, "Kill all Jews, Gas them all." And in another of the frightening trends last year, a known white supremacist hacker tuned in to five Zoom sessions, in one case pulling up his shirt in front of a meeting of a Jewish youth group to reveal a swastika tattoo.
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