Reports of antisemitic incidents to Milwaukee’s Jewish Community Relations Council remained near record-high levels in 2021, the council’s annual audit found.
It’s in line with the surging rates of antisemitism the council has documented in recent years, which the audit’s authors called a “troubling trend.”
In 2021, the council received 95 reports of antisemitism that either took place in Wisconsin or had a connection to the state. That’s only a tick below the high-water mark of 99 incidents recorded in 2020.
The early 2010s rarely saw more than 20 reports in a year.
As the country endured its second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the council noted an increase in pandemic-related conspiracies about the Jewish community as well as statements that minimized the Holocaust or compared it to mask and vaccine requirements.
“Holocaust denial has always been clear cut antisemitism, but increasingly we have seen Holocaust minimalization,” the audit authors stated, “which is just as dangerous as it desensitizes people to the horrific acts of the Holocaust.”
Among the incidents cited in the report was a protest in which several people held signs comparing vaccine mandates to the systematic killing of 6 million Jews. One sign had a yellow Star of David and the word “unvaccinated,” and “mandated experimental drugs is Nazism.”
In 2021, there was a documented rise in COVID-19 conspiracy theories about the Jewish community or Israel on social media, the report said.
In Kenosha, those online conspiracies spilled over into real life. According to the audit, flyers that read, “Every single aspect of the covid agenda is Jewish” were found on residential driveways. The flyer listed national health leaders who are Jewish.
The audit also recorded an uptick in direct, personal acts of antisemitism like harassment, threats and assaults.
Compared to the kinds of personal attacks the council recorded in the mid-2010s, the recent incidents are “more severe, they are bolder, more open, more personal, and more threatening,” the audit’s authors wrote.
In one instance, someone chased three Orthodox Jewish men and yelled at them for their faith; in another, “a man wearing a Star of David necklace was shoved while being cursed at for being a Jew,” the audit said.
