This Week’s Topline

ADL Helps Launch New J7 Task Force to Meet Global Antisemitism Challenges

In response to increasing rates of antisemitism around the world, ADL and other major Jewish organizations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Argentina and Australia announced the formation of the J7, the Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism.

Threats to our communities are not contained by continents and borders, so the task force will bring together leaders of seven large Diaspora Jewish communities to discuss common challenges, develop coordinated strategies and share best practices to confront this. Read more about this new global task force.

What’s News

FAILING GRADES FOR MAJOR PLATFORMS: Online antisemitism, hate and harassment are at record highs, but targets of hate continue to struggle to receive the support they need. ADL’s new report card reveals the grades we gave popular platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Twitch and Reddit. As our ADL Center for Technology and Society shows in the example in our report, TikTok-ers involved in Holocaust education are facing an influx of antisemitic abuse, yet these online communities are often getting failing grades in supporting victims.

PROFILING AN EXTREMIST: The ADL Center on Extremism shares a profile of writer/podcaster E. Michael Jones, who aims to defend ‘traditional Catholic teachings’ and has an audience on the radical fringe. An obsession of Jones is the damage that he believes Jews are inflicting on the Catholic Church and Western civilization. “‘Tikkun Olam,’” Jones claimed, “is the Jewish term for using the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit to wreck your culture.”

HOW DOES ANTISEMITISM SPREAD?: The ADL Center for Antisemitism Research has been analyzing antisemitic attitudes in America. Its latest report thankfully finds that most respondents have heard anti-Jewish comments either “rarely” or “never.” The most common place they heard anti-Jewish comments was from political, cultural and media sources, and less frequently from their social and religious surroundings.

GOOD SPORTS: What can sports teach us about antisemitism, and how can we teach middle and high school students about antisemitism through the lens of sports? If you have teens in your lives, don’t miss this new sports-centric lesson plan to challenge antisemitism and champion justice.

ANTISEMITISM, ILLUSTRATED: With tensions high across Israel and the Palestinian territories, cartoons depicting anti-Israel messages, particularly by depicting Israel and its policies and people as animals, have been a common theme in Arab-language media. These cartoons serve to dehumanize Jews and Israel by employing classical antisemitic depictions of Jews. See examples of this hate-filled art that ADL has discovered in the media in recent weeks.

@ ADL’s Incident Tracker

The @ADL_tracker feed of news and developments in antisemitism activities.

This past week, a white supremacist from Reseda, CA was charged with federal drug and ammunition charges. The man allegedly “called for the mass murder of Jews.”

— ADL Tracker (@ADL_Tracker) August 1, 2023

The graphic design app Art Lab, which allows for easy content creation and has over 100K downloads on Google Play, recently removed the antisemitic “Happy Merchant” meme from their platform, apologizing for its presence on the app.

— ADL Tracker (@ADL_Tracker) July 26, 2023

Social Spotlights

@JGreenblattADL

I believe in counsel culture not cancel culture — but this approach only works when the offender demonstrates some measure of contrition and an openness to learn. We’ve seen zero from Kanye.
Absolutely sickening that antisemite Kanye West was unsuspended from Twitter/X and given a gold verification check mark. He’s done absolutely nothing to make amends.

@ADL

For the second week in a row, ADL worked with synagogues, law enforcement & our local Jewish communal partners in multiple states to navigate antisemitic swatting events during Shabbat services. Thankfully, today’s services were able to continue relatively uninterrupted. ADL will remain vigilant & continue helping synagogues defy these trolls.

@ADL

This was a busy month for our team in Europe! We provided #WordsToAction antisemitism trainings to over 300 middle and high school students at @BBISofficial in Berlin, the @Paideia_EU alumni gathering in Vilnius and the Spanish Jewish Student Union @FEJJE_Oficial in Madrid. Thanks to all who participated.