Latest / Antisemitism Watch / Antisemitism Watch - August 13, 2026, 01 PM Eastern

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Antisemitism Watch - August 13, 2026, 01 PM Eastern · Antisemitism Watch

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to antisemitism. Watch I'm Rachel Adler. Today we
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  Speaker 1: cover a disturbing pattern of harassment on US school grounds,
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  Speaker 1: profound failures in online content moderation, and concerning rhetoric from
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  Speaker 1: political figures in media. We begin with campus and higher education,
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  Speaker 1: where the Boulder Valley School District is addressing a federal
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  Speaker 1: civil rights complaint filed by the Anti Defamation League on
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  Speaker 1: behalf of a Southern Hills Middle school student. The complaint
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  Speaker 1: details years of severe antisemitic harassment, slurs, threats, and physical
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  Speaker 1: abuse against the student. Allegations include students playing jee touch, tag,
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  Speaker 1: making Nazi and Holocaust related comments, and one incident where
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  Speaker 1: a charging cord was allegedly placed around the student's neck
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  Speaker 1: while an antisemitic slur was used. Superintendent Rob Anderson issued
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  Speaker 1: a public apology, acknowledging insufficient district responses and pledging to
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  Speaker 1: implement a district response team and oversight council. Jewish Alliance
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  Speaker 1: of Colorado President Aaron Brooks urged the board to address
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  Speaker 1: the child's experience, directly stating a Jewish child was allegedly
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  Speaker 1: targeted for two years because he is Jewish. Adl Mountain
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  Speaker 1: states Regional Director Susan Rona emphasized the importance of meaningful
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  Speaker 1: action to protect students in broader higher education efforts. The
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  Speaker 1: ADL has launched a new initiative providing tools to combat
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  Speaker 1: antisemitism in lecture halls and faculty organizations, noting sixteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: four antisemitic incidents on US campuses in twenty twenty four
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  Speaker 1: and five hundred and eighty three in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 1: In politics and media, a new report from the Combat
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  Speaker 1: Antisemitism Movement or CAM, found that thirty three percent of
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  Speaker 1: posts from Dan Bulzirian's campaign ex account contained antisemitic hate speech,
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  Speaker 1: including Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories, reaching an estimated twenty
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  Speaker 1: three point six million people. The study analyzed six hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty seven posts made between May and August twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty six. Bilzerian, who is running in Florida's sixth congressional district,
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  Speaker 1: also personally attacked his opponent, calling him a fat, disgusting Jew.
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  Speaker 1: In California, Democratic candidate John Ericsson is accused by former
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  Speaker 1: candidate zenen ulieight Crow of operating a fake Instagram account
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  Speaker 1: Pratt Voters for Goldsmith, which allegedly posted inflammatory messages, denied
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  Speaker 1: the genocide in Gaza, and claimed opposition to rival Brian
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  Speaker 1: Goldsmith was antisemitic. Ericsson has denied these accusations and challenged
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  Speaker 1: Juli eight Crow to provide further evidence. Meanwhile, in media appearances,
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  Speaker 1: Hunter Biden, speaking on Tucker Carlson's podcast, suggested his infamous
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  Speaker 1: laptop was hacked, possibly by Israelis or Russians, stating they
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  Speaker 1: hacked my cloud. He conceded he lacked digital forensic evidence,
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  Speaker 1: but Carlson also suggested Israelis connected to Benjamin Netaniahu were
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  Speaker 1: shopping this stuff to him at Fox News. Biden also
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  Speaker 1: appeared on the podcast of Nick Fuentes, whom the report
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  Speaker 1: describes as a fake write huckster, though Biden did reportedly
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  Speaker 1: rebuke Fuentes for noxious antisemitism. Turning to online hate and extremism,
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  Speaker 1: a new audit by the World Jewish Congress reveals a
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  Speaker 1: significant failure by major social media platforms to moderate antisemitic content.
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  Speaker 1: The study, which analyzed seven hundred and fifty four reported
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  Speaker 1: posts between February twenty twenty five and April twenty twenty six,
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  Speaker 1: found that eighty one point three percent remained publicly available online.
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  Speaker 1: As of May twenty twenty six, reporting content to platforms
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  Speaker 1: made virtually no measurable difference in its removal. Facebook, Instagram,
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  Speaker 1: and x had removal rates under fifteen percent, while tik
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  Speaker 1: Tok removed sixty four percent of flagged content. Notably, Israel
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  Speaker 1: related antisemitism showed a removal rate of just five point
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  Speaker 1: two percent, with content comparing Israeli policy to Nazism seeing
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  Speaker 1: no removals at all. A high school student, LeHo Lewis
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  Speaker 1: described in an essay the pervasive antisemitism among his generation,
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  Speaker 1: noting a new right wing variant using the term goy
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  Speaker 1: pejoratively spread through online platforms and memes. Cyberwell also warned
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  Speaker 1: of antisemitic conspiracies blaming Jews for European wildfires spreading online internationally.
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  Speaker 1: Israeli entrepreneur sche Yyish has launched a website called Safe
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  Speaker 1: for Jews to help Jewish travelers identify safe destinations worldwide.
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  Speaker 1: The platform uses AI and data from over sixty thousand
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  Speaker 1: news sources and government advisories. The interactive map highlights areas
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  Speaker 1: of concern, with much of Western Europe, North America, and
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  Speaker 1: Canada color coded orange for warning indicating widespread global antisemitism
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  Speaker 1: that impacts Jewish travelers. We look at anti Zionism and
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  Speaker 1: IHR qualifying Israe rhetoric. The algemaner critiqued to New York
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  Speaker 1: magazine grub Street feature for framing ordinary Israeli life and
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  Speaker 1: cuisine as inherently political appropriation or evidence of genocide, and
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  Speaker 1: for describing Israel as the land mass currently called Israel.
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  Speaker 1: The piece also noted that the article fails to explain
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  Speaker 1: the context of October seventh as an atrocity, instead using
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  Speaker 1: it as a chronological marker. Separately, Jerry Coyne's blog questions
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  Speaker 1: the distinction between anti Zionism and antisemitism, arguing that denying
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  Speaker 1: the existence of the state of Israel is inherently antisemitic,
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  Speaker 1: as Zionism now means promoting the continued existence of a
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  Speaker 1: Jewish state in institutional and policy responses. Haverford College has
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  Speaker 1: agreed to sweeping changes following a lawsuit filed by Jewish
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  Speaker 1: students alleging the campus became a hotbed for radicalism, including hamas,
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  Speaker 1: supporting rhetoric and antisemitic harassment. The settlement mandates a new
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  Speaker 1: civil rights director, an antisemitism committee, annual training for staff
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  Speaker 1: and students, and improved security for Jewish events. The lawsuit
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  Speaker 1: detailed how masked protesters disrupted events and activists shared images
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  Speaker 1: of hamas paragliders. Meanwhile, testimony before the Royal Commission on
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  Speaker 1: Antisemitism and Social Cohesion revealed Snap's limitations in automatically moderating
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  Speaker 1: antisemitic content on Snapchat, especially in private messages. Council assisting
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  Speaker 1: the Commission noted that high school students could share a
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  Speaker 1: video of a Hitler salute on Snapchat without the company
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  Speaker 1: knowing or moderating it. Former religious extremist mubenot In Shake
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  Speaker 1: also testified, calling antisemitism the connective tissue across extremist ideologies
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  Speaker 1: regarding Holocaust denial and distortion. A central London Arabic bookstore,
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  Speaker 1: Aphek Bookstore, has drawn criticism for prominently displaying copies of
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  Speaker 1: Adolph Hitler's Main Camp. Local counselor Eliot Keck called the
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  Speaker 1: display hideous, and she Shopper's expressed shock at seeing hate
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  Speaker 1: propaganda front and center. A shop assistant defended the book
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  Speaker 1: by saying reading its shows the danger of these ideas,
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  Speaker 1: but stated the book was no longer on display, due
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  Speaker 1: to criticism. In case outcomes, a federal judge dismissed a
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  Speaker 1: lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Harvard University. The
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  Speaker 1: lawsuit alleged that the university failed to adequately protect Jewish
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  Speaker 1: students from antisemitism, an argument that emerged following pro Palestinian
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  Speaker 1: protests and encampments after the October seventh Hamas attack on Israel. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: in community response and positive developments, Hindu students are advocating
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  Speaker 1: for educational reforms to differentiate the swastika, a sacred symbol
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  Speaker 1: in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, from the Nazi Hocknkroiz. Fifteen
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  Speaker 1: year old Mayra Trivetti successfully convinced her New Jersey school
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  Speaker 1: board to educate thirty five teachers about this distinction, noting
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  Speaker 1: that conflation has led to fear and confusion. Additionally, an
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  Speaker 1: article by Michele Walladharsky challenges the perception that Jews are
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  Speaker 1: leaving New York due to rising antisemitism. While acknowledging the challenges,
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  Speaker 1: the author's first hand observations describe a vibrant, confident, and
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  Speaker 1: overt Jewish life in the city, contrasting with the narrative
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  Speaker 1: of decay. I'm Rachel Adler. Thank you for listening to
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  Speaker 1: Antisemitism Watch. This report was generated with AI assistance and
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  Speaker 1: may contain inaccuracies. Please verify important details with primary sources.