JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An antisemitism event that was planned long before the Israel-Hamas war broke out was held Tuesday night with the First Coast YMCA.
The “Together Against Hate” series was planned after antisemitic images were displayed at the Florida-Georgia game last year, but organizers said the event’s timing, unfortunately, came at a time when prejudice against Jewish people is on the rise.
Since the Israel-Hamas war broke out a month ago, an Anti-Defamation League report shows a nearly 400 percent spike in antisemitic incidents in the United States.
Hate crimes have been on the rise for several years with the Federal Bureau of Investigation reporting an 11% increase in hate crimes from 2020 to 2021.
“Before October 7th, we were seeing rising antisemitism in our community not only nationally with the record highest number of antisemitic incidents in 2022 but also here in Florida where in 2022, we saw double the number of incidents that we saw in 2020. Since the war we’ve just seen an explosion an antisemitic incidents across our nation and in our state,” Emmons said.
Combating antisemitism was the topic of discussion for the third installment of the Together Against Hate Series. Although that topic was decided almost a year ago, Adam Chaskin, CEO of the Jewish Community Alliance, said the topic is still very timely to current world events.
“We created Together Against Hate to provide the education platform to break down those barriers of why this hate even exists in the first place so hopefully tonight with what’s going on it will attract even more people to listen to our message and to have that information they need to help break down those barriers and stop the hate,” Chaskin said.
Chaskin said the goal of the series is to educate people and break down barriers.
Penny Zuber, chief operating officer for the First Coast YMCA, says these events highlight the importance of creating a dialogue.
“Dialogue leads to awareness and awareness leads to understanding and it’s just so important for us to to really recognize that and appreciate the differences in people and in our ability to really find common ground and and live together as a community,” Zuber said.
There are also concerns about a rise in Islamophobic incidents. News4JAX reached out to the Council on American-Islamic Relations to see if they had any data on a rise in anti-Muslim or Islamaphobic incidents since Oct. 7, but have not heard back.
Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League Florida Sarah Emmons talked about growing concerns among the Muslim and Islamic communities.
“So the rise in islamophobia and Islamophobic incidents is of equal concern to what we’re seeing in terms of antisemitism,” Emmons said. “So while ADL’s focus is really around tracking antisemitism our mission is to not only stop the defamation of the Jewish people but to secure Justice and fair treatment for all.”
Chaskin says their goal is to educate people about groups they might not have come in contact with in their lives.
“A lot of forms of antisemitism come from people not being aware of how we got where we even are today whether it’s with the war or just why there’s conflict in that region so it’s educating people about those reasons breaking down the barriers of some of the unfortunate tropes and libels that have existed for thousands of years you know I don’t have horns or a tail you know cause I’m not spawn of the devil even though I’m Jewish so it’s breaking down those tropes,” Chaskin said.
The Anti-Defamation League has a tool to report antisemitic or discriminatory incidents on their website at adl.org.
The next speaker series is on Dec. 5.