San Diego Anti-Defamation League Reacts To Increase In Anti-Semitic Violence

Speaker 1: 00:00 The news of last weekend, stabbing attack on Jews at a rabbi's residence in New York hit the San Diego community, particularly hard memories are still fresh of the attack at a synagogue and Poway earlier this year. It's just the latest in a series of antisemitic attacks across the country and calls are coming from Jewish leaders for more to be done to STEM the violence. Joining us to talk more about this is Lindsay Zipkin, director of development at the San Diego office of the anti defamation league. So Lindy, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. So what went through your mind when you heard in the media about this attack in New York? Right. So I come at this from both the professional perspective of here we are again. Um, and it's, it's alarming the amount of attacks that we saw in New York and New Jersey over Hanukkah. I think there was 12 or 13, um, that we recorded. Speaker 1: 00:52 Uh, but also I'm a mom of two small Jewish kids who go to tourist school and preschool at our synagogue. And you look at those types of things and, um, you know, during our happy celebrations and, uh, you know, my daughter actually saw something about this on the news and she turned to us and she said, that hurts my heart because I celebrate Hanukkah too. And that man wanted to hurt people who celebrate Hanukkah. So, um, you know, I really come at it from, you know, a whole different level of, uh, personal. Yeah. It's very personal. Yes. Well, um, I understand that the ADL did, uh, an audit of the antisemitic attacks from 2018 that showed a dramatic increase in violence against Jewish people. And, uh, I just wondering, I mean, is the San Diego community, uh, reacting to this? Is it, is it becoming commonplace or how are they reacting to all of this? Speaker 1: 01:44 Right. So actually, ADL has been collecting, um, incidents of antisemitism for decades now. Um, and since then, or 2015, we've seen a 99% increase in antisemitic incidents. Um, actually notably in 2018, there was a slight nationwide decline in incidents. However, in San Diego or California specifically, we had a 27% increase. So I think when the San Diego community sees things like this, obviously there's a, um, a connection to those communities that's probably, uh, a bond forged of trauma and tragedy and one that we share with Pittsburgh. Um, you know, and other communities that have felt this type of violence, um, sort of a ugly club we don't want to be a member of, but we are Amanda. And then I think people too are reacting less and less. Um, because I think that they are tired of it and I think that they're seeing it so much more. Speaker 1: 02:43 I mean, the weeks before that too, there were, um, attacks on synagogues in Los Angeles and my Alma mater, I went to a Jewish university up there, was um, vandalized down here. We are getting calls almost daily of vandalism and, um, you know, we get a lot of kids lately who are coming home saying that their parents or that their friend's parents are saying that they can't play together anymore because they're Jewish and they don't like Jewish people. So it's really becoming commonplace, um, both in terms of how it feels to be Jewish and see these things happen, but also it's becoming more normalized for people who have these antisemitic, uh, feelings. That's very disturbing. Um, in, in Los Angeles, the, the police apparently did increase patrols around synagogues and, um, they said out of an abundance of caution. Absolutely. What's your relationship with the San Diego PD users? The, are they responding in any way? Speaker 1: 03:40 Oh, absolutely. We have a great relationship with local law enforcement, both the Sheriff's department and the PD, um, which I know we feel continuously grateful for. Uh, they were one of the first calls that our director made after seeing all of these incidents and they pledged the same two up all of their patrols at synagogues and Jewish community institutions throughout the city and County. Um, which, you know, it can't appreciate enough. So, yeah. Would you say the synagogues are also taking steps that they were not taking before? Well, you know, I honestly think that this is not, um, new. Like I said, and many of the synagogues already have very strict protocol for safety in place. We work closely with all of the synagogues in Jewish institutions in town to help review their security protocol and make sure that people are properly trained, um, help advise them on security and safety plans. Speaker 1: 04:34 And, you know, I can speak from experience. My synagogue isn't, is looking to increase its security, but it's already a type of fortress to get into my synagogue. So I think it's, um, you know, everybody's going to be looking to be more vigilant and to add more. But I think there's a lot of security in place already because of what's been happening. I mean, there's two ways of looking at this. One can either sort of up the security or one can look at how to prevent it. You know, what to do to prevent it. Absolutely. What would you say needs to be done on that front? Well, you know, we have a number of different things that we work on at ADL, both locally and nationally. At the federal level. When Congress comes back into session, we're really hoping that they will push through the federal domestic terrorism prevention act. Speaker 1: 05:17 There are no acts currently at the federal level addressing domestic terrorism, which is obviously a huge issue that we need to tackle. We also have a no hate act that we're hoping they'll push through as well. So do you think that we're focusing too much then still on, on international terrorism threats from outside and not enough on the threats from within? Right. So I think after, um, I believe it was El Paso, there was an increased, uh, awareness and effort on the part of federal law enforcement to start targeting some of these domestic terrorists. Um, but I think that there needs to be more that's done. I know that one of the things that we are really big, um, firm believers in is more communication between federal law enforcement and local law enforcement. A lot of times there aren't the resources in place for the two to communicate when they're dealing with these types of things. And so we would like to see more funding allocated so that people are in, you know, who are doing this work, are able to talk to each other and get more done. Speaker 2: 06:13 But there is a, in a sense, perhaps some kind of education that seems to me to be perhaps something that is a little bit harder to legislate, but I don't know if you've got any, um, words of what you've been thinking in terms of what we can do to try to spread a different kind of message. Speaker 1: 06:32 Right. Well, ADL is one of the largest providers of anti bias education to schools throughout the country. Um, we've been doing that for decades. In San Diego alone, we reach about 45 to 50,000 people a year in the schools. So we have a great partnership with San Diego unified. We work with Poway unified and that actually was in place prior to the shooting at Habod there. But, um, it has certainly strengthened since. Um, and we work with a number of other city and County schools and we go in and we do general anti-biased education because we recognize that it's not just about antisemitism that hate is hate and it can grow from any place. Um, and we are strong believers. We, you know, we couldn't get up and do this work every day if we didn't truly believe you could change hearts and minds. So we know that education works and prevention at that level is successful. Speaker 2: 07:24 Well, thanks so much for coming in. Thank you for having me. That's Lindsey Zipkin, who's director of development at the San Diego office of the Anti-Defamation league.