BETHLEHEM, Pa. — On Tuesday night, a Bethlehem resident used a public comment session at a city council meeting to make antisemitic remarks, prompting several council members to walk out and the mayor to respond.
The incident came a day before a White House roundtable where second gentleman Doug Emhoff will lead a discussion with Jewish leaders following a surge in anti-Jewish comments involving prominent people.
"Let me be clear: words matter. People are no longer saying the quiet parts out loud, they are screaming them," Emhoff plans to say on Wednesday, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the White House and reported by NPR.
In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center on Extremism tabulated 2,717 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States. It was a 34% increase from 2020 and the highest number on record since the ADL began tracking in 1979.
The audit shows 69 of those incidents took place in Pennsylvania, with 49 involving harassment, 16 involving vandalism and 4 involving assault.
While the surge of incidents didn’t recognize those specific to the Lehigh Valley, the ADL collects comprehensive statistics on domestic instances of antisemitism, extremism and terrorism and tracks them monthly.
These are just some of the incidents listed in the area over the last several years:
- In March of this year, published reports said fliers with antisemitic and racist language were found in driveways in Bangor and Washington Township, Northampton County.
- The ADL’s annual report on white supremacist and nationalist propaganda showed 14 reported instances of fliers in Bethlehem in 2021.
- On Oct. 26, 2020, reports were made to the ADL of swastikas and "KKK" found etched into playground equipment in Bethlehem.
- On June 5, 2020, an Allentown synagogue's Shabbat prayer services held on Zoom were disrupted by unknown participants who told worshippers "Death to the Jews."
There are more. According to the Brown & White, Lehigh University's student-run newspaper, a rabbi was disrupted while conducting a funeral service at Congregation Brith Sholom Cemetery in Fountain Hill in the fall of 2018. And in 2017, the ADL reported a Jewish student in Lehigh County received hateful messages online, including one of her photo superimposed near a pile of ashes and a swastika.
Due to the rise in antisemitic incidents, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley launched its own incident report system it said was designed to keep better track of the number of antisemitic incidents occurring in the community and to report more accurate data to law enforcement and national partners.
This December, along with the Jewish Federation of North America, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley is partnering with Shine a Light to combat antisemitism. They’re asking community members to share photos of family and friends lighting their chanukiah to be shared on social media.
The Jewish Federation is also encouraging anyone in need of assistance to contact Jewish Family Service at 610-821-8722 or visit https://www.jfslv.org/.
Lehigh University Jewish Student Center is also a safe place for students to come together and socialize, Rabbi Steve Nathan told LehighValleyNews.com in a story earlier this week.
