August 28, 2019 Background Witness for Peace (WFP) is an anti-Semitic organization based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that primarily espouses anti-Israel content and anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish racism, power and influence and dual loyalties. WFP is affiliated with another anti-Semitic group, Deir Yassin Remembered. WFP’s leader and founder, Henry Herskovitz, is a Holocaust denier. WFP was founded in 2003 by Herskovitz, a former Beth Israel (Ann Arbor) congregant, to protest the…

August 23, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 President Trump accused Jews who vote for Democrats of having “great disloyalty” – invoking a centuries old anti-Semitic trope. An avowed white nationalist was arrested for threatening to attack a Jewish community center in Youngstown, OH. And in California, members of a high school water polo team were seen on video giving the Nazi salute and singing a Nazi song. Read on for more on these headlines, news you can use to fight hate, and…

August 16, 2019 Update: On January 14, 2020, Conor Climo entered a plea agreement to weapons charges for possession of an unregistered firearm with the court. He faces a sentence from 2 years to 30 months.  Conor Climo appeared in court on February 10, 2020, to plead guilty to the charges. On August 8, 2019, the FBI arrested Conor Climo, a Las Vegas-based security guard, on weapons charges for possession of an unregistered firearm. According to analysis by ADL’s Center on…

August 16, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 A man in southern Nevada was arrested after investigators uncovered his plot to attack an LGBTQ nightclub, a local synagogue and the regional ADL office with firearms and explosives. A white supremacist group distributed anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic fliers at Seattle-area synagogues as part of a coordinated propaganda effort. And over 100 tires were slashed in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in NJ. Read on for more on these headlines,…

by: Libby Otto By mid-September, you’re busy with school, work and fall activities. Constitution Day, on September 17, may slip past you without a thought. So why should this year be any different?  Constitution Day is the anniversary of the day that the Founding Fathers signed the United States Constitution. As you reflect this year on how the current political climate and public policies impact millions of people, continue asking yourself: are you making a positive change to…

August 15, 2019         View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Anti-Defamation League (@adl_national) on Aug 15, 2019 at 11:54am PDT Update: As of September 4, 21 of the following channels remain active on YouTube. An analysis by ADL’s Center on Extremism found that a…

August 08, 2019 Patrick Crusius, the white supremacist allegedly behind the August 3 massacre in El Paso, Texas, was very clear about his rationale for committing this act of violence. In an online screed titled, “The Inconvenient Truth,” he wrote, “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas… I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”  These words echo what we’ve heard in recent…

Update: Just days after Unite the Right’s 2nd anniversary, white supremacist and Charlottesville attendee James Patrick Reardon Jr., of New Middletown, Ohio, was arrested for allegedly making threats to the Youngstown, Ohio, Jewish community center. Reardon was charged with telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing for allegedly posting an Instagram video of a man shooting a semi-automatic rifle with sirens and screams in the background. The video was captioned, &ldquo…

August 07, 2019 A mass shooting by a white supremacist at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on August 3, 2019, shocked Americans across the nation. The horrific attack left 22 people dead and even more injured. Shortly before the attack,  alleged shooter Patrick Crusius is believed to have posted a manifesto on the website 8chan. The four-page screed was intended to provide a justification for his deadly spree. It is not the first time a white supremacist killer has followed precisely this…

August 06, 2019 In the days following the El Paso, Texas, shooting massacre that left at least 22 dead, white supremacists and other anti-Semitic extremists reacted to the murders and the killer’s manifesto with a mixture of praise and criticism. Kevin MacDonald, a longtime white supremacist author and psychologist, tweeted that he agreed with the shooter’s assessment of the political dynamics in the country, and shared his concern about the “great replacement,&rdquo…

In August 2019, at a time when parents and teachers should have been be thinking about children’s new notebooks and back-to-school jitters, they instead had to contemplate how to talk with their children about mass shootings and anti-immigrant bias. On Saturday, August 3, 2019 a gunman opened fire in a shopping center in El Paso, Texas—a city that prides itself as one of the safest in the U.S. Some families were there to do their back-to-school shopping at Walmart when tragedy…

On Saturday morning, August 3, 2019, a gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and at the adjacent Cielo Vista Mall. The death toll is believed to be at least 20, and several dozen people are reportedly injured.  The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius of Allen, Texas, was taken into custody shortly after the shooting. The FBI has reportedly opened a domestic terrorism investigation into the shooting, while Texas authorities are investigating the…

August 02, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 A new report from ADL reveals extremist items, including those promoting white supremacy, are widely available for purchase on Amazon, despite the company’s terms of service against such products. The alleged gunman responsible for killing three at a California food festival promoted a book cited by white supremacists on social media shortly before opening fire. The NonProfit Times is out with their annual “Power and Influence Top 50,”…

July 30, 2019 After a deadly shooting spree at the Gilroy (California) Garlic Festival on July 28 that left three dead and 15 injured, an Instagram account was discovered that appears to have recently been created by the shooter, Santino Legan. In a post made not long before the attack, Legan asked why towns were overcrowded and open space paved over to make room for “hoards [sic] of mestizos and Silicon Valley white tw*ts.” Legan also urged people to read the book Might…

July 29, 2019 Items and merchandise promoting right-wing extremist ideologies, including white supremacy and the anti-government militia movement, are still being offered for sale by various third-party sellers on Amazon, in apparent violation of the company’s own policies, according to a recent search of the retailing site by experts in ADL’s Center on Extremism. Hateful books (including paradigmatic white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries) are easily accessible, usually…

July 19, 2019 Edition: July 18, 2019 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 President Trump directs “blatantly racist” tweets at four Democratic Congresswomen of color, telling them to “go back” to where they came from. Argentina marks the solemn 25th anniversary of the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 and wounded 300. White supremacists in Massachusetts have launched a coordinated fliering campaign, targeting area synagogues with propaganda…