Dear John,

As we enter our second week of Fighting Hate from Home, we are planning to send more frequent communications to keep you up to date on all things ADL. Unfortunately, while everything else in our world is changing, hate seems to be a constant. We are sharing below a few of the things ADL has been working on, along with some resources that we hope you find useful. As always, please reach out if we can be of help or if you've witnessed or experienced a bias or hate-related incident.

Even during these days of social distancing and most in the community working from home, we've witnessed an increase in hateful rhetoric and even violence against Asian Americans and Jews. We are seeing an uptick in scapegoating for the spread of coronavirus. We hope you’ve had a chance to read the op-ed by Andrew Yang and Jonathan Greenblatt calling out this dangerous rhetoric: “We need to stop the demonization of minorities, call out scapegoating for what it is and come together as one nation indivisible so we can beat this together.” We have been sharing that important message while also working with the Asian American community and law enforcement to enhance protection for our neighbors.

We are aware that news has spread of an FBI alert about extremist groups, including white supremacists, calling on their members to weaponize COVID-19 and try to infect law enforcement officers, Jews and other minority groups. This is, of course, deeply disturbing, but not entirely surprising. Extremists historically attempt to seize on moments of crisis to push conspiracy theories and even advocate for violence. This is why ADL remains vigilantly focused on fighting domestic extremism nationwide.

We hope you are staying safe and healthy and finding creative ways to work, care for your family and get through this challenging time.

Thank you for your ongoing commitment to fighting hate for good. Now more than ever, we must be united in this work.

Thank you,
           
Doron F. Ezickson, Vice President Mid-Atlantic/Midwest Division

Jonathan Gleklen, ADL Washington, D.C. Regional Board Chair   

Throughout this outbreak, ADL is witnessing incidents of bias and harassment nationwide, and our Center of Extremism (COE) is tracking extremists' use of the virus to advance their racist, conspiratorial agendas. On Thursday, Oren Segal, who leads ADL’s COE, shared some of the alarming virus-related messages spreading antisemitism and racism on both fringe and mainstream online platforms. He and Jonathan Greenblatt, our CEO and National Director, also fielded questions about your concerns in this challenging time.

To watch and share the webinar, please visit our Fighting Hate from Home playlist on YouTube. We are archiving each webinar in the series there.

Our next webinar will be on Thursday, March 26th at 2:30pm: "The Danger to Minority Groups Due to Cornoavirus-fueled Xenophobia and Violence" 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR FUTURE WEBINARS

As our partner, you can help ADL ensure discussions of the Coronavirus pandemic do not resort to stereotypes and xenophobia in your communities. Together, we can make sure hate finds no footholds during this time of crisis. 

ADL is committed to speaking out against conspiracy theories and extremists, who capitalize on moments like this to promote their agendas and spread hateful rhetoric. While some of their messages are new, many are old tropes repackaged for a modern pandemic. 

We encourage you to read and share the ADL resources and links referenced in the webinar: