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CNN Special Reports
Lipstadt: Anti-Semitism Has The Strange Title Of The Oldest Or The Longest Hatred; Jonathan Greenblatt: Anti-Semitism Is Being Normalized; Segal: Anti-Semitism Is Often Actually Used As A Tool To Silence People. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired February 24, 2023 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: What have we had this season? We've had the least amount of snowfall.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Yes, there's been no snow.
ENTEN: No snow. The least amount of snowfall, through this point, and the second warmest winter, on record, through this point. So, this has been horrific for me. I've hated every single minute of it. But we've at least had a good time here, this evening.
COOPER: I want to hear more about snow camp, in the break.
Harry Enten, thank you very much.
The "CNN SPECIAL REPORT: RISING HATE: ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA" starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The following is a CNN Special Report.
TEXT: A CNN SPECIAL REPORT.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kanye West's brazen anti-Semitism is rolling on.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT & CNN ANCHOR: Spreading anti-Semitic Holocaust-denying filth.
KANYE WEST, RAPPER: God forbid one comment!
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The tide of anti-Semitism is rising.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Kyrie Irving, suspended by the Brooklyn Nets, for defending his decision, to tweet a link, to a film, criticized as anti-Semitic.
BASH (voice-over): The oldest and deadliest hate, now alive and thriving.
PAUL ABBATE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: The threat level against the Jewish community is historic.
BASH (voice-over): Hate, once limited to extremists, fanatics.
(VIDEO - PROTESTERS CHANTING "JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US!")
BASH (voice-over): Now mainstream.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A meeting, between the former President, Kanye, and a Holocaust denier.
BASH (voice-over): Alarmingly out in the open.
SEN. MITT ROMNEY (R-UT): I think it's disgusting.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE: There's no question that anti-Semitism is being normalized.
BASH (voice-over): Across America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hatred hanging above the 405.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone sprayed anti-Semitic threats.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Another public display of anti-Semitism, in Beverly Hills.
BASH (voice-over): Online.
OREN SEGAL, VICE PRESIDENT, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE'S CENTER ON EXTREMISM: We've seen people live-stream their actual attacks.
BASH (on camera): This is disgusting.
BASH (voice-over): On college campuses, and in politics.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: It's become a political prop, for people, on both the right and the left.
BASH (voice-over): How did we get here and how do we stop it?
This is a CNN SPECIAL REPORT: RISING HATE: ANTISEMITISM IN AMERICA.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): It was a year ago, January 15th, 2022, a bitter cold day, in Colleyville, Texas.
CHARLIE CYTRON-WALKER, FORMER RABBI AT CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL IN COLLEYVILLE, TEXAS: It was in the 30s, in Texas, doesn't usually get that cold.
BASH (voice-over): So, when a visitor knocked on the door, of Congregation Beth Israel, then-Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, didn't think twice, about welcoming him in.
CYTRON-WALKER: When I opened the door, to just offer a word, he asked if we had a night shelter. So, I let him in. I got him some tea.
BASH (voice-over): Rabbi Cytron-Walker then began the Sabbath service, on Zoom, with three congregants there, in-person.
CYTRON-WALKER: My back was turned away from the congregation. I thought I heard a click, the click of a gun. I went to the back of the room, and that's when he pulled the gun on me.
JEFF COHEN, CONGREGATION BETH ISRAEL MEMBER: And within a few seconds, he got up and started yelling, "I've got a bomb."
BASH (voice-over): Jeff Cohen came to pray, and became a hostage.
COHEN: My phone was sitting next to me, and I quickly dialed 911.
BASH (voice-over): People watching the live stream could hear the gunman.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hostages are surrounding me. And I'm going to die. I am going to die at the end of this, all right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We believe there to be one individual that is holding people hostage inside Beth Israel Congregation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): The hostage standoff lasted for nearly 11 hours. While FBI Special Agent-in-Charge, Matthew DeSarno's team negotiated with the gunman.
MATTHEW DESARNO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, VERFICO SOFTWARE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT-IN-CHARGE: He was demanding the release of a convicted al-Qaeda terrorist, who was housed nearby.
COHEN: He believed that coming in here and attacking Jews that the Jews controlled everything, so they would make it happen. Jews control the government. Jews control the banks. Jews control the media. He truly believed this.
DEBORAH LIPSTADT, PROFESSOR OF MODERN JEWISH HISTORY AND HOLOCAUST STUDIES, EMORY UNIVERSITY: It's a prejudice that's rooted in a conspiracy theory.
BASH (voice-over): Deborah Lipstadt is widely considered one of the world's foremost experts, on anti-Semitism.
LIPSTADT: Anti-Semitism has the strange title of the oldest or the longest hatred. Hating Jews is very convenient.
BASH (on camera): Why?
LIPSTADT: You need someone to blame if there's a plague in your town. You need someone to blame if the economy goes bad. You need someone to blame if the war is lost. BASH (voice-over): Jeff Cohen worried those conspiracy theories might end his life, and was able to use his phone, to post a message, on Facebook.
COHEN: "At CBI. There is a gunman here. He says he has a bomb. Remember me. Stop hate." Little painful to remember! Little painful to remember!
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:05:00]
BASH (voice-over): Around 8 o'clock that night, the negotiations deteriorated and the gunman grew agitated.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do something, OK? (inaudible).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DESARNO: His demeanor changed. It was much more demanding with deadlines, ultimatums.
That's when I authorized our Hostage Rescue team to execute a deliberate hostage rescue.
BASH (voice-over): And at the exact same moment?
CYTRON-WALKER: For the first time, all day, he didn't have his hand on the trigger.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (inaudible).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CYTRON-WALKER: And so, I told the guys to run.
COHEN: We ran. We went through that door, as fast as we could.
BASH (voice-over): And what you're seeing is that escape.
The Colleyville crisis was just one, in an alarming rise of anti- Semitic attacks, across the United States.
ABBATE: The threat is serious.
BASH (on camera): You are the Deputy Director of the FBI. The fact that you thought it was important enough, to sit down, to talk about anti-Semitism, in America, what does that say, about the threat? ABBATE: The threat level, against the Jewish community, is historic. And over the last few years, it's been on the rise.
BASH (on camera): Are biases towards Jews higher than it is towards people of other religions?
ABBATE: No doubt about that.
BASH (voice-over): Over the past five years, FBI data shows, Jews have been the victims of hate crimes, more often than any other religion.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: In 2021, we tracked the highest number of incidents we've ever seen.
BASH (voice-over): Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO of the Anti- Defamation League, which has been tracking anti-Semitic incidents, for more than 40 years.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: It's bad in a way we haven't seen since arguably the 1930s. There's no question that anti-Semitism is being normalized. It's become a political prop for people on both the right and the left.
LIPSTADT: Irrespective of where it's coming from, people rely on the same template of charges, whether it's COVID-19, whether it's climate change, whatever it might be, the Jews are behind it. It would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous.
BASH (on camera): Why is there this spike right now?
LIPSTADT: There's been a rise in divisiveness, in this country, generally. We're a very convenient scapegoat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUTH STEINFELD, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: All my parents wanted to do is protect my sister and I.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Holocaust survivor, Ruth Steinfeld, knows this all too well.
STEINFELD: The Holocaust started with words, Hitler yelling, screaming, how they had to get rid of us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADOLF HITLER, LEADER OF THE NAZI PARTY, DICTATOR OF GERMANY (through translator): --the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEINFELD: And on September 9th, 1942, both my parents were put to death in Auschwitz. BASH (voice-over): She was just 13-years-old, when she and her family were sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Her mother made the heart- wrenching decision, to let a French organization, take her, and her sister, to safety.
STEINFELD: The last time I saw my mom is when she insisted that we get on that bus. And I didn't want to get on the bus. I wanted to stay with her.
I have this picture of watching momma waving goodbye to me from the street when I'm waving and crying.
BASH (voice-over): Steinfeld lives just a few hours from Colleyville.
BASH (on camera): You experienced the kind of hate that no one should, and lost your parents, because of it.
But you're a proud American. Do you see some of that hate bubbling up here?
STEINFELD: Absolutely. At first, it was just once in a while. Now, it seems to be in the air, all over. All I say is "Never again." But guess what? It is again and again and again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JULIA IOFFE, RUSSIAN-AMERICAN JOURNALIST: Melania Trump has a half- brother that apparently she did not know about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I heard the article was nasty.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM WITH WOLF BLITZER: Some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman, Julia Ioffe, with anti-Semitic attacks, death threats.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): One of the reasons for the rise in anti-Semitism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(VIDEO - PROTESTERS CHANTING "JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US!")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:10:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: Melania, so great--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): As Donald Trump quickly catapulted, from long shot, to frontrunner, in 2016?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: It was a great moment. OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): The spotlight shined on his wife, would-be first lady, Melania Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
M. TRUMP: Good evening. Isn't he the best?
(AUDIENCE CHEERS "YES!")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
IOFFE: At the time, nobody really knew who she was.
BASH (voice-over): Journalist, Julia Ioffe, was assigned an article, on Melania Trump, and traveled to her native, Slovenia.
IOFFE: Somebody approached my fixer (ph) and me, and said, "You know, she has an illegitimate half-brother that she doesn't know about."
We went to the Archives. We found the custody, and the child support proceedings. It all checked out.
BASH (voice-over): The article posted on April 27th, 2016.
Within 24 hours, Melania Trump reacted, on Facebook, accusing Ioffe of having an agenda.
IOFFE: The problem is when your husband runs for president, everything is fair game.
BASH (on camera): So, when she says it was a hit job, you say?
IOFFE: It wasn't a hit job. It was just, this is the family.
BASH (voice-over): Soon after, a Neo-Nazi website posted this.
"Filthy Russian Kike, Julia Ioffe, attacks empress Melania."
Then "Go ahead and send her," Ioffe, "a Tweet."
IOFFE: I started getting all these calls, and all of this ugly stuff, on social media, and my email, and then the photoshops, of my face, in a gas chamber, or my face, in an Auschwitz mugshot. So many of these people were making overt connections between these anti-Semitic actions and speech, and their support for Donald Trump.
SEGAL: Anti-Semitism is often actually used as a tool to silence people.
These anti-Semites are--
BASH (voice-over): Oren Segal runs the Anti-Defamation League's Center of Extremism.
[21:15:00]
SEGAL: There's a troll army that was created. Then you harass somebody until they say "Uncle."
BASH (voice-over): But Ioffe would not cry "Uncle."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
IOFFE: So, people feel very brave, sitting behind - behind their keyboards.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): She was motivated by her family, who fled anti- Semitism, in the Soviet Union, when she was young.
IOFFE: I owed it both to my parents and to my ancestors to not be quiet about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman, Julia Ioffe, with anti-Semitic attacks, death threats--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Soon after the attacks, Wolf Blitzer interviewed the presumptive Republican nominee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: I don't know anything about that.
BLITZER: But your message--
D. TRUMP: You mean fans of mine?
BLITZER: Supposed fans of yours--
D. TRUMP: I don't know.
BLITZER: --posting these.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): And when pressed again? This.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: But your message to these fans is?
D. TRUMP: I don't have a message to the fans. There is nothing more dishonest than the media.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (on camera): So, his silence was taken how?
BRITTAN HELLER, HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE, PROFESSOR: As permission.
BASH (voice-over): Brittan Heller, is a human rights advocate, and a professor, who complies data, about online hate.
BASH (on camera): You actually saw data that back that up?
HELLER: Yes. We would see the number of attacking tweets on Jewish journalists, spike. It was the largest spike that we saw in our dataset. People took that as a green light.
JASON GREENBLATT, AUTHOR, "IN THE PATH OF ABRAHAM": I've seen press that always tries to say Donald Trump's silence or his kind of words used is an instruction to do something bad. I don't buy it.
BASH (voice-over): Jason Greenblatt, has been one of Donald Trump's lawyers, for decades.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: I've had many, many friends over the years, Orthodox.
Maybe I could get Jason Greenblatt down here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GREENBLATT: I worked for him, for 23 years, and I saw time and time again how he wasn't anti-Semitic.
BASH (voice-over): He points to Trump's actions on Israel, moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and spearheading the Abraham Accords.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: Israel is a sovereign nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): But what about Trump's refusal to condemn anti- Semitic attacks on Julia Ioffe?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) D. TRUMP: And I heard the article was nasty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GREENBLATT: Mm-hmm. I can't explain it.
BASH (on camera): Did you feel a special responsibility to go to him when you saw those things happening?
JASON GREENBLATT: I did.
BASH (on camera): Can you give me an example?
JASON GREENBLATT: The David Duke thing during the campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Will you unequivocally condemn David Duke and say that you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election?
D. TRUMP: Well just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. OK? I--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GREENBLATT: I saw what was happening, I guess, as a result of Jake's interview, and I said, "Look, this is what's happening. Here's what David Duke actually said. Do you stand for this?" And he said, "Absolutely not." So, he dictated a condemnation.
BASH (on camera): And why do you think he didn't get it in the moment?
JASON GREENBLATT: Not everybody knows David Duke, as silly as that sounds. But maybe he didn't understand what was being asked of him? Very hard to say.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: The reason why his statement still hit people so hard, it's because pulling that out of him required so much effort.
Donald Trump is complicated. He has a Jewish daughter and son-in-law. He has Jewish grandchildren. There has never been a president in the history of the Republic, as personally closest to the Jewish people, as Donald Trump.
And things like the Abraham Accords? These were really important.
And yet at the same time when asked to call out white supremacists?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: Proud boys, stand back and stand-by.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: And when he stood there, days after Charlottesville, and said?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: The Neo-Nazis knew exactly what he meant. His attitude, his language, the choices that he made ushered in this hate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: Excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (on camera): So, Jason Greenblatt, he argues that if you read all of the remarks in that Charlottesville press conference, he did condemn the Neo-Nazis and the white supremacists.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
D. TRUMP: And I'm not talking about the Neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: If Donald Trump convincingly, consistently, clearly called out the extremists, and the anti-Semites, it wouldn't even matter, what he said, at that moment.
BASH (voice-over): The statistics speak volumes.
From 2001 until 2015, anti-Semitic incidents, in the U.S., were declining.
Then, in 2016, a 30 percent spike.
In 2017, a 57 percent increase, the largest since the ADL began tracking this.
That summer? The Charlottesville riot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(VIDEO - PROTESTERS CHANTING "JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US!")
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: Donald Trump didn't invent anti-Semitism.
The thing that made, his presidency, so frightening in this respect, is how he normalized prejudice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) D. TRUMP: Kung Flu, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:20:00]
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: It augers in environments where prejudice is permissible.
BASH (voice-over): And one of those environments, the internet.
SEGAL: This is it.
BASH (voice-over): That part of the story when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(PIANO MUSIC)
BASH (on camera): It's incredible.
(PIANO MUSIC)
BASH (on camera): It's hard to believe someone like that, who plays so beautifully, plays music that makes people feel good can be so evil.
DAVID GRAPILON, DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY, SAN DIEGO COUNTY: Yes.
He was truly gifted. But rather than giving a gift, he, kind of, gave a curse.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANA CABRERA, FORMER CNN REPORTER & ANCHOR: Breaking news, just in to CNN, the Sheriff's Office in San Diego County has confirmed one man has been detained for questioning, in connection with a shooting incident, at a synagogue. Again, this is in San Diego.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN MORALES (ph), CHABAD OF POWAY SYNAGOGUE MEMBER: We were just beginning the fifth reading the Torah portion. It was interrupted by a series of gunshots.
BASH (voice-over): Jonathan Morales (ph) was praying, in the back row, of the Chabad of Poway, in Southern California. It was the last night of Passover, April 2019.
BASH (on camera): How close were you to the bullets coming into this sanctuary?
[21:25:00]
MORALES (ph): Less than 10 feet away from bullets and shrapnel.
BASH (voice-over): Morales (ph), a Border Patrol agent, crawled on the floor, to grab a gun he knew the rabbi had hidden, in case of emergency. He chased the gunman, out of the synagogue, firing at him, as he ran to his car to escape.
MORALES (ph): He ducked under the steering wheel. And that's when he pressed his foot, on the gas pedal, and took off.
BASH (voice-over): The scene was gruesome. One congregant, Lori Gilbert Kaye, was dead, and three others, including an 8-year-old girl, injured.
Minutes after he fled that scene, the gunman called 911, himself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN TIMOTHY EARNEST, POWAY SYNAGOGUE SHOOTER: I opened fire at a synagogue. I think I killed some people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRAPILON: He wanted essentially to be caught.
BASH (on camera): Why?
GRAPILON: I think he wanted a forum.
BASH (voice-over): A forum for his anti-Semitic rage, says Deputy District Attorney, David Grapilon.
In a hate-filled rambling manifesto, he wrote that Jews, quote, "Deserve nothing but hell" and that he wanted to be the one to quote, "Send them there."
GRAPILON: At no time did he ever express any regret for what he did.
In fact in jail, one of the deputies found one of the slippers, and on the sole of where your - your heel would be, in pencil, was a Star of David, on his heel.
BASH (on camera): He put a Star of David on the sole of his shoe, so he could step on it?
GRAPILON: Yes.
BASH (voice-over): The 19-year-old was radicalized online.
GRAPILON: We had hundreds of images that he had downloaded from the internet, anything from anti-Semitism, to celebration of the Nazis, Hitler.
BASH (on camera): What do you think pushed him over the edge?
GRAPILON: The Christchurch shooting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Police in the City of Christchurch responding. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Responding to an active shooter at a New Zealand mosque, who was live streaming his killing spree, and posting his manifesto, online.
SEGAL: It provided the blueprint on how to do it again. This is not outside of the box anymore. This is standard operating procedure for anti-Semites and extremists.
DAMIEN PATTON, FOUNDER/CEO, BANJO: Their recruiting is pretty sophisticated.
BASH (voice-over): Recruitment into the world of hate is something Damien Patton understands well.
PATTON: And this is ultimately where I was recruited into gangs.
BASH (on camera): Right here?
PATTON: Right here.
BASH (voice-over): It was the 1980s. Patton was a runaway, homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.
PATTON: How the skinheads approached me was really with a business card.
BASH (on camera): Yes.
PATTON: A business card is reserved for people, who are successful, for people, in business.
BASH (on camera): So you thought, "They're successful?"
PATTON: They're successful.
BASH (on camera): "I want to be like that."
PATTON: Exactly. That's - it's how it all started. And it had nothing to do with ideology in the beginning. It had everything to do with wanting to be like them, and wanting out of my bad situation.
BASH (voice-over): He came from a broken home. A single mom, she was Jewish.
PATTON: The part that probably resonated with me in their message was, I was angry. And so, anti-Semitism was really saying I was "Anti-my- family".
BASH (voice-over): Patton became a skinhead, the movement which erupted across the U.S. in the 80s with violent attacks and murders, often targeting Jews. He rose in the ranks, becoming a recruiter himself.
Patton says, these days, it's easier than ever to lure people in. PATTON: These white supremacists are sitting at home, today, looking for the vulnerable, online. You can be on 1,000 street corners, at once now. And that's the big difference.
BASH (voice-over): And there's no escaping it. A recent study showed there was anti-Semitism, on every social platform.
SEGAL: Part of what they're trying to do to attract people to their hate is to use, almost stylistic type of imagery and memes. And so, here, "Hey... look, everybody! It's the "Midnight Jew Crew" makin' Hate Crimes great again!" Basically blaming Jews, for falsely creating anti-Semitic incidents, to get sympathies, essentially.
BASH (voice-over): A new tactic, live-streaming confrontation, like here, when a white supremacist, goes after a Jewish man.
SEGAL: Many of these viewers are engaging in real-time.
BASH (on camera): "Watch the Jew squirm."
SEGAL: "Watch the Jew squirm."
BASH (on camera): "F the Jews."
SEGAL: Exactly. They are actually, in many cases, telling the folks on the ground what they should do.
And if you notice, there's a "Donate" button. So the more that he, say, curses out a bystander, the more money will be - will be given.
And this is, again, why it's so concerning, is that we've seen people live-stream their actual attacks, their shootings. Because they also anticipate that people will watch them, go on the extremist journey with them.
BASH (voice-over): Like the Poway shooter did.
The Jewish community there is still trying to heal.
MORALES (ph): It's kind of there as a reminder and a memory of what happened.
BASH (on camera): To never - never ever forget?
MORALES (ph): Yes.
[21:30:00]
BASH (voice-over): Which is why their current rabbi, Mendel Goldstein, invited us in, the first television media allowed, inside the sanctuary, since the deadly shooting.
MENDEL GOLDSTEIN, RABBI, CHABAD OF POWAY: Judaism teaches us that we will continue growing, that whenever challenged with darkness and evil, we will fight back with lights and kindness and goodness.
BASH (voice-over): Which is not easy during a deadly pandemic, when haters are looking for someone to blame.
That, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BASH (voice-over): Spring 2020. Chicago, like most cities in the U.S., was a ghost town, locked down by the pandemic.
But not this secret location.
BASH (on camera): So this is the Command Center?
BASH (voice-over): Mike Masters is the CEO of the Secure Community Network. Its 24/7 Command Center is privately-funded, and staffed with veterans, from the Intelligence sector. Analysts monitor all the way down to the dark web for anti-Semitic threats.
MICHAEL MASTERS, NATIONAL DIRECTOR & CEO, SECURE COMMUNITY NETWORK: We saw a spike during COVID. Our Duty Desk started registering a significant increase and proliferation of anti-Semitism in the online space.
[21:35:00]
BASH (voice-over): That Desk has never been seen on national television, until now.
MASTERS: What you're looking at here, all those blue dots represent a Jewish facility. And then, the red paddles represent potential risk events. Where there's a congruence of the risk event, in the institution, that's when we're getting an alert, that's when our team of analysts will start to go to work.
ABBATE: We work with them day-in and day-out, really 24/7.
BASH (on camera): What does their Command Center do that the FBI can't?
ABBATE: They give us a different flow of information that we might not otherwise have.
MASTERS: This gives you a sense of what they're pulling.
BASH (voice-over): Masters showed us an example of a potential attack they prevented.
BASH (on camera): What this person is describing, in great gruesome detail, is a violent attack against Jews.
MASTERS: "Pummeling a pink mist into the air until I hear the police outside."
It's vile. They've been doing it since the beginning of time, but certainly we've seen an uptick in this, since COVID.
BASH (voice-over): So did the Anti-Defamation League. JONATHAN GREENBLATT: COVID was a perfect storm for prejudice in many ways.
SEGAL: What extremists and anti-Semites did was try to hack into or jump into Zoom calls, and make people feel scared. And so, this was just using an age-old hatred, but a new technology, in order to spread that, Zoom bombing. So, as people were spending more time online, especially younger people, they realized this was an opportunity to reach out in different ways.
BASH (voice-over): Including on popular gaming platforms, for young children.
Parents, take note.
DANIEL KELLEY, DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY, ADL: This is the defaced synagogue. So that can be so many--
BASH (voice-over): Anti-Semitism is rampant in the gaming world, says Daniel Kelley, the Director of the Center for Technology & Society at the ADL.
KELLEY: In this experience, you have a Swastika and the Iron Cross here.
We also have people, who are setting up these kinds of Minecraft servers, and creating concentration camp reenactments, doing all sorts of hateful things, like going around killing the villagers.
BASH (voice-over): An age-old trope also reemerged with COVID. The conspiracy theory that Jews are responsible for disease.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: People first said that COVID was some bioweapon developed by Jews.
Then, they blamed Orthodox Jewish communities, for being singularly responsible, for spreading COVID.
Then, they claimed, after Pfizer, and Regeneron, and other companies were coming up, with these medical interventions, and vaccines, that the Jews were doing it, in order to profit off of the virus.
LIPSTADT: If COVID-19 had happened prior to the internet, people would have made the same charges, but they wouldn't have ignited the way they do.
BASH (voice-over): And as people came out of isolation, it continued to spread offline. Fliers left on doorsteps, blaming COVID, on the Jews, or well-known people, using the Holocaust, to advance the anti- mask and anti-vax cause.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYER AND ANTI-VAXXER: Even in Hitler's Germany, you could - you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you can hide in an attic, like Anne Frank did. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Robert Kennedy, Jr. eventually apologized.
But the genie was out of the bottle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star. They were put in trains and taken to gas chambers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPSTADT: The use of the Holocaust, people walking around with yellow stars or yellow masks, or things like that, to compare to the COVID is a form of Holocaust distortion. It's degrading of history.
BASH (voice-over): When we come back, a new growing form of anti- Semitism, from the political left.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BASH (voice-over): On the SUNY New Paltz campus, an hour and a half north of Manhattan, third-year student Cassie Blotner (ph), felt she fit right in.
CASSIE BLOTNER (ph), SUNY NEW PALTZ STUDENT: They have a really good political science program that drew me there. And I loved the vibes of the town, super-progressive as well.
BASH (voice-over): But in 2021, she says, she was kicked out of a group called New Paltz Accountability or NPA, a group she co-founded, for survivors of sexual assault.
Why? Because she shared a post on Instagram, about being a Zionist.
BLOTNER (ph): Well it said that Jews are indigenous to Israel, and that you can't colonize the land of which you're indigenous to.
BASH (on camera): What happened after that post?
BLOTNER (ph): One of the founding members of NPA said, "So you don't think Palestinians are being oppressed?"
But I have no animosity towards Palestinians.
Another member sent this horrible text, to me in the NPA group chat, accusing me of being an oppressor. He told me that because I'm a Zionist, that I condone violence against Palestinians, and just made all these uncalled-for assumptions.
BASH (voice-over): Assumptions that human rights lawyer, Alyza Lewin, calls, contemporary anti-Semitism. ALYZA LEWIN, HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER, PRESIDENT OF THE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER LAW: People today have a very difficult time understanding what Zionism is. They don't realize that Judaism is not just a religion, that Judaism also has this sense of Jewish peoplehood, were this ethno religion, right?
The Jews share a common history, a common ancestry, and that history and that ancestry is completely rooted in the land of Israel. And it has absolutely nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict. They may be very critical, as a matter of fact, of the current government of Israel. They may be very pro-Palestinian human rights. It makes no difference. They're considered pariahs.
BASH (on camera): They accused you of causing sexual violence against others?
BLOTNER (ph): They did. So, they told me that because I'm a Zionist, that that means I'm an oppressor. And that means that I am not against all forms of oppression, which means that I'm not against sexual violence.
BASH (voice-over): This was posted on NPA's Instagram account.
"The origins of sexual violence are rooted in colonialism.
Being against sexual violence but indifferent to colonialism are conflicting ideologies.
[21:45:00]
Justifying the occupation of Palestine, in any way, condones the violence used to acquire the land. This does not mean we do not support survivors or students with different political beliefs."
LEWIN: The language of the left, fighting for the political, racial, and social justice, unfortunately, sometimes, I'll say, inadvertently, is creating an atmosphere that is, instead of promoting true inclusivity and acceptance of diversity, it's promoting a perspective that is creating an environment that is hostile towards Jews.
RABBI JILL JACOBS, CEO OF T'RUAH: Lot of times when people talk about Zionism or anti-Zionism, they don't take the next step of saying, "Well, what does somebody actually mean by that?"
BASH (voice-over): Rabbi Jill Jacobs runs a progressive Jewish organization, T'ruah. She tries to educate fellow liberals, to prevent so-called anti-Zionism, from devolving into anti-Semitism.
JACOBS: One can criticize Israeli policy, one can even make criticisms that are very hard for many Jews to hear, or that one doesn't agree with.
When it crosses the line into anti-Semitism is when you either use classic anti-Semitic tropes, so things like Jews having too much power, Zionists controlling the world, Jews wanting money, or when you hear things like, "Well, today's Jews aren't the real Jews. They were just descended from European converts," so, that's anti-Semitism.
BASH (voice-over): Harassment that Blotner (ph) experienced, at SUNY New Paltz is part of a trend, rising anti-Semitism, in various forms, on college campuses, across the U.S.
Lewin is President of the Brandeis Center, which provides legal representation, to victims of anti-Semitism, on college campuses.
LEWIN: There's greater demand than our capacity to provide and meet the demand at this moment.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: We've seen incidents at Stanford, UCLA, Northwestern, Michigan, Columbia, Tufts, Harvard, and the list goes on.
BASH (voice-over): The Palestinian cause is a prominent one, among progressives, right now.
And those voices have big megaphones, at universities.
JACOBS: When I was on campus, it was "Free Tibet." Why Tibet? Had anybody been to Tibet? Not necessarily. And it's still not free. But that was the issue of the moment.
And it is true that Palestine is the issue of the moment. And that's not to discount it, the Palestinians should be free.
There's a lot of factors that go into why Palestinian activism is so prominent on college campuses. And there certainly is an anti-Semitic element in there, but it's not the only or even the primary element.
BASH (voice-over): Experts, across the board, caution anti-Semitism is growing on the left, but it is not equivalent to hate from the right.
JACOBS: I'm certainly more terrified of the right, of people, who are white nationalists, who are armed, who have a history of walking into synagogues, and opening fire.
And on the left, it is more in the discourse.
JONATHAN GREENBLATT: So, on the extreme right, they are the tornado that will tear apart your house and kill everyone inside in an instant.
The far-left is like climate change. Slowly but surely, the temperature is rising. Some people deny it. Then, some people say we can adapt to it. But suddenly it reaches the point the temperature has become so inhospitable that people can no longer live there.
BASH (voice-over): At SUNY New Paltz, Blotner's (ph) situation grew serious, when a friend saw threatening posts, seemingly directed at her, on the social media platform, Yik Yak.
BLOTNER (ph): People were saying, "If you see the Zionist, spit on her."
And he said that he saw death threats. And I called my dad and he came and he picked me up at like 3:00 in the morning.
BASH (voice-over): She no longer felt safe going to classes.
The President of SUNY New Paltz did send this email, to the campus community, condemning anti-Semitism, in its many forms.
But for Blotner (ph), it wasn't enough.
In June, Lewin filed a formal complaint, on behalf of Blotner (ph), and another New Paltz student, with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
LEWIN: The universities have an obligation to make sure that all of their students have equal access to all of those educational opportunities.
BASH (voice-over): SUNY New Paltz declined to speak with us on-camera.
And the students, who Cassie (ph) says kicked her out of the club, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. And in a text, with Blotner (ph), claimed they are not anti-Semitic.
[21:50:00]
The University did give us a statement, saying they've provided support and resources to, quote, "Those impacted by the events of the past year." They said they worked with their Jewish students and staff to support them and address anti-Semitism. And they underscored as well that they support the free exchange of ideas under the First Amendment.
BASH (on camera): What did it feel like being kicked out of a group that you started because of a trauma that you experienced?
BLOTNER (ph): I feel like I'm having a bit of an identity crisis because I've been feeling like I had to decide if I was more a survivor of sexual violence, or if I was feeling more Jewish that day because they wanted me to choose between the two.
BASH (voice-over): Coming up, how to stop the hate.
PATTON: Social media companies were the great disruptors 10 years ago. They needed to be disrupted today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I, Deborah Lipstadt--
LIPSTADT: I, Deborah Lipstadt--
HARRIS: --do solemnly affirm--
(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH (voice-over): May 24th, 2022, a historic moment at the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: --Constitution of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIPSTADT: I was overwhelmed.
BASH (voice-over): Deborah Lipstadt sworn in as Special Envoy to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: So, help me, God.
LIPSTADT: So, help me, God.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): An Ambassador-level post for the first time.
LIPSTADT: The leadership of this country recognizes that this is a serious issue.
BASH (on camera): And what does it say that this position even exists?
[21:55:00]
LIPSTADT: It's the good news and the bad news.
The good news that it does exist.
The bad news is that we need it. It's sort of like some sort of cure for a terrible disease.
BASH (voice-over): A cure that seems more elusive, as high-profile figures, with big megaphones, and millions of followers, spread hate, against Jews.
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, refused to relent in spewing anti- Semitic bile.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WEST: I'm not trying to be shocking. I like Hitler.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Even after losing lucrative business deals, though some like Adidas were reluctant, at first, to drop him.
And yet, his rhetoric still spurred hate, like this banner, on an L.A. highway, and leaflets like this, dropped at homes there. In fact, a new report, from the Anti-Defamation League, documents at least 30 anti-Semitic incidents, directly related to Ye's hateful outbursts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(AUDIENCE APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Not helpful? On "Saturday Night Live," comedian Dave Chappelle's commentary about Kanye took an anti-Semitic turn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE CHAPPELLE, AMERICAN COMEDIAN: I've been to Hollywood. This is just what I saw: It's a lot of Jews.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHTER)
CHAPPELLE: Like a lot!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Those jokes relied on perpetuating stereotypes, about the Jewish community.
BASH (voice-over): Former President Donald Trump welcomed Ye, and a friend, a known white supremacist, at Mar-a-Lago, in November 2022.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CO-ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING: Trump found Fuentes, who flattered him throughout the meal, quote, "Very interesting."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Trump made no apologies.
Yet a long line of politicians, notably Republicans, did speak out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMNEY: I think it's disgusting to invite people like that to meet with a former President of the United States.
ASA HUTCHINSON, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS: I don't think it's a good idea for a leader that's setting an example for the country or the party to meet with avowed, racist or anti-Semite.
LARRY KUDLOW, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES: I love the guy. But I do not understand Kanye West hanging out with white nationalists, hanging out with anti-Semitic people. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): Even Trump's longtime loyal attorney, and Orthodox Jew, Jason Greenblatt, could not stay silent, saying, quote, "The question I am addressing is what I thought of President Trump having dinner with haters such as Fuentes and West.
I think it's a straightforward answer - it should not have happened. Period."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUGLAS EMHOFF, SECOND GENTLEMAN OF THE UNITED STATES: Good morning.
(AUDIENCE RESPOND WITH "GOOD MORNING")
EMHOFF: There's an epidemic of hate facing our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): All of this prompted second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, to host a White House Summit, on anti-Semitism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMHOFF: Words matter.
LIPSTADT: I can say that we're dealing with it at the highest level of our government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH (voice-over): And they're not alone.
PATTON: The first way we're going to start doing this, we got to set achievable goals.
BASH (voice-over): Damien Patton, once a skinhead, who recruited people, on the streets, is now working on technology, to curb anti- Semitism, online.
PATTON: Social media companies were the great disruptors, 10 years ago. They needed to be disrupted today.
BASH (voice-over): Meanwhile, law enforcement is focused on disrupting attacks from this rising hate.
And for the ones they can't prevent, training for how to respond.
But there needs to be another solution. What is it? How do we stop this increase in anti-Semitism?
LIPSTADT: Understanding, recognition, condemnation, and action. Words are easy, but it's to act on it, to educate.
BASH (voice-over): All the more important when less than half the states in the U.S. mandate Holocaust education in school.
LIPSTADT: It matters because this is a plague. You've got to understand how little things grow into bigger things. How people are taught to hate.
BASH (voice-over): For generations, many Jews responded to rising anti-Semitism by retreating, staying quiet.
Now, not as much.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMHOFF: I will not remain silent. And I am proud to be Jewish. I am proud to live openly as a Jew. And I'm not afraid.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JASON GREENBLATT: You realize that people who have strange, bad, crazy misconceptions about Jews. When you talk to them, and they meet you, and they realize that those misconceptions are wrong, that's how you build bridges and correct these historical prejudices.
LIPSTADT: I wear a Jewish Star, something I've only started to do recently.
BASH (on camera): Why is that?
LIPSTADT: I'm proud of who I am.
With the rise of anti-Semitism, I wanted to say "Here I am. This is who I am."
BASH (voice-over): Standing up to the oldest hate, educating and never forgetting.
