CALIFORNIA, USA — Reports of antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise across the country, including in Northern California.
Nationally, incidents against Jewish Americans are up about 388% since Hamas' attack on Israel, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
FBI Director Christopher Wray warned this week antisemitism is reaching “historic levels,” with Jews making up about 2.4% of the U.S. population yet they're on the receiving end of 60% of the country’s religious-based hate crimes.
“In many ways, it feels like the kind of antisemitism that Jewish people experienced prior to the Holocaust,” said Barry Broad, the president of the Sacramento chapter of the Jewish Federation. “Some think that Jews are a different and evil race of people that are polluting the general population, and we’re facing endless, crazy conspiracy theories and violent threats.”
Broad says the rising hostility against the Jewish community has many living in fear, especially on college campuses.
“They’re scared to go to class, they’re scared to wear any outward identification of their religion, like a star of David. They’re essentially hiding. We’ve seen a rise in antisemitism before but what’s different this time is the mainstreaming of antisemitism and the mainstreaming on both sides of the political spectrum. It’s not just the extreme right, the traditional kind of Neo-Nazis, but also on the extreme left side, as a result of people supporting the Palestinian position and feeling that they need to express anti-Semitic beliefs in association with that," he said.
The warning from the FBI comes as Davis police investigate an anti-Semitic symbol spray-painted on a wall. Officers say they made the discovery somewhere between Highway 113 and the Greenbelt, near Joshua Tree Street Monday morning.
The spray paint has since been removed, but the emotional scars are still present for those in the Jewish community.
Also in Davis Oct. 20, the Chancellor of the University of California, Davis condemned a social media post allegedly made by a UC Davis Assistant Professor threatening Jews, even including a knife and blood drop emojis.
“This is a professor, someone who’s supposed to teach young people. How can any young person feel safe being in the classroom with someone like that?” asked Broad. “And that’s the kind of statements we’re seeing, these wildly violent statements from people.”
A student was arrested this week at Cornell University in New York, accused of threatening to kill Jewish students in a series of online posts. Patrick Dai, 21, is facing federal charges for “posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New York’s Northern District. He could spend up to five years in prison, if convicted.
As the conflict in the Middle East intensifies, Muslims in the U.S. are also on heightened alert, with reports of Islamophobia up 182%, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. A 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in Illinois was stabbed to death Oct. 14 in what police are investigating as an anti-Muslim hate crime.
“People are afraid. It reminds the folks who were around during 9/11, just the atmosphere of that time and we’re seeing people opening justify the genocide of Palestinians,” said Basim Elkarra, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Just seeing the amount of hate rhetoric out on social media, people getting fired from their jobs for posting against what's happening in Gaza. It’s a very scary time.”
Elkarra is from the Gaza Strip and says he has already lost a number of family members in the war. Through his personal pain, he calls on Californians to come together and speak up for peace.
“It’s just a very tough time right now. Emotions are very high,” Elkarra said. “We condemn Islamophobia. We condemn antisemitism. We’ve spoken out and our community leaders have spoken out in a united front because one endangers everyone, so we are concerned about what’s happening.”
The Davis Police Department says they take hate crimes seriously and are investigating the latest case as such. Officers are asking those with surveillance cameras in the area to come forward with any information they may have. Those reports can be made anonymously.
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