ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA
NEVER AGAIN IS NOW
In the twenty-first century United States, Jews stand out as the individuals most likely to suffer from discrimination, mistreatment, and violent attack — as they have in so many times and so many places throughout history.
FBI and state statistics on hate crimes show that on a per capita basis, Jews are subject to vastly more attacks than any other ethnic, religious, racial, or national group. While Jews make up less than 2% of the American population, they are the victims of approximately 60% of all religiously motivated hate crimes. Unofficially — anecdotally and realistically — the actual incidence is multiples of that.
The danger is even greater for individuals and institutions immediately recognizable as Jewish. Synagogues, JCCs, Jewish cemeteries, Jewish schools, kosher markets, and anything visibly connected to Israel require security measures — and bear security costs — far greater than their non-Jewish neighbors and counterparts. Individuals wearing distinctively Jewish garb or symbols — a yarmulke, a Magen David, a T-shirt with Hebrew writing — face street-level attack and harassment wildly disproportionate to their numbers.
The growing problem in the United States is part of a deeply troubling trend. Antisemitism is on the rise, throughout the Western world, on multiple fronts. That rise poses a serious threat, not only to the Jews but to broader Western societies. Antisemitism is a cultural illness; it’s a sign of a society on the verge of collapse and looking for scapegoats. If America cannot defeat the multiple rising threats against the Jews, it cannot defend itself.
This is not a fringe problem. It is not a problem of the distant past. It is happening now, in America, at a pace and scale that has accelerated dramatically in recent years — and most sharply since October 7, 2023, when the proudly genocidal Palestinian massacre of 1,200 Israelis, and the torture, mass rape, and kidnapping of hundreds more, triggered not only a war in Gaza and on six other active fronts but an explosion of open, proud, public antisemitism across American campuses, cities, institutions, and political parties.
The Jewish Legal Defense Fund (JLDF) is first and foremost founded to protect Jews. But its importance is truly universal. The Jews live - unwillingly - on the frontlines of America’s increasingly extreme culture wars. The welfare of America’s Jews is a bellwether for the health of American society writ large.
The fight against antisemitism is at the forefront of today's struggle for civil rights. It must be waged on every front — educational, legal, cultural, institutional, and political.
Never Again is Now. JLDF is Here.
