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