20 | MAY 21 • 2020
Double
the Hate?
Michigan anti-Semitic
incidents doubled in 2019,
ADL audit says.
MAYA GOLDMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Jews in the D
A
nti-Semitic acts in Michigan dou-
bled from 2018 to 2019, up to 42
incidents from 21 incidents two
years ago, according to the Anti-Defamation
League’
s 2019 audit.
ADL Michigan Director Carolyn
Normandin told the Jewish News that as far as
she knows, this is the highest year on record
for Michigan.
Thirty-two of the reported incidents in
Michigan were acts of harassment, which
involved one or more Jewish person feeling
intimidated by anti-Semitic language or
actions. The other 10 events were acts of
anti-Semitic vandalism. The ADL did not
receive any reports of anti-Semitic assault in
Michigan in 2019.
However, 12 of the ADL
’
s reported inci-
dents (28%) represented weekly protests at
a synagogue in Ann Arbor that have been
ongoing for over 16 years. The JN reported
on the situation — and a lawsuit filed against
the protestors late last year — in April. The
ADL did not count these protests in its 2018
statewide audit.
Incident reports come to the ADL
through phone calls, emails or an online
reporting tool on the organization’
s website.
Each report is then vetted by the ADL —
Normandin said this includes talking to
people involved and looking for visuals to
corroborate statements.
“We believe that data drives decision-mak-
ing and policy, so by having data, real data,
we’
re able to stand by these statements that
we make. They’
re factual,
” she said.
About 122 total reports were made to
ADL Michigan in 2019, Normandin said.
Forty-two of those were corroborated
anti-Semitic events, but about a third of
the total reports were examples of white
supremacist propaganda, which the
ADL does not count toward its total for
anti-Semitism. Another roughly 20 percent
were found to be other forms of hate. A
small handful of the total reports could not
be corroborated or were deemed to be false
reports.
The audit shows that 18 of last year’
s
reported events in Michigan occurred at
Jewish institutions or schools. Another
10 events happened in public spaces, and
six took place at non-Jewish schools. The
remaining events occurred in business
establishments, colleges or universities, a
cemetery, a home and online.
Normandin said that the ADL only
began receiving reports on the Ann Arbor
synagogue protests last summer. This was
also when a lawyer began compiling infor-
mation for a lawsuit against the protestors,
filed later in the year.
The number 12 was a stand-in for the
protests’
weekly presence and decided on
through multiple conversations with the
Ann Arbor synagogue and the Center on
COURTESY OF DAVID HOLDEN
A swastika found
at Temple Jacob in
Hancock, Michigan,
in 2019.
ADL Michigan has already corroborated
and approved 14 incidents of anti-Semitism
for the 2020 audit, which is about
on track with last year.
continued on page 21