December 3, 2023 • 24 mins
Reports of crimes targeting Jews, Muslims and Arabs have risen around the world in since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the Israeli military’s retaliatory operation in Gaza. While previous conflicts in the Middle East also sparked a backlash outside the region, this time it is more intense and the wave of hate may be far from cresting, according to advocacy groups, former law enforcement officials and analysts. In this Bloomberg Radio special report, Stephen Carroll examines how these communities are confronting a global surge in hate speech and hate crimes.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We celebrate in love and we danced.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Then it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Then the rockets started in gunshots everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We managed to escape, but.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
There are a lot of friends that didn't.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
What we will do to our enemies in the coming days,
will reverberate with them for generations.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
A missile hit in the square and there was rubble
hitting us. As we were walking. There was glass metal.
It was like doomsday.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
There are civilians here whom are not our enemy, and
we do not want to target them. We are asking
them to evacuate.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There are fifty people in the house without any food, drink, water,
or electricity.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know how we'll provide food for our children.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
War isn't what we're looking for, but war was forced
upon us by a bloodthirsty terrorist organization.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
On the seventh of October, Hamas attacked Israel. One two
hundred people were killed and more than two hundred others
taken to Gaza as hostages. It was the largest loss
of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Israel's military response was swift.
At the time of this recording, Gaza's Hamas run government
says more than fifteen thousand people have been killed there,
(01:25):
including thousands of children a moment ago. You heard from
some of those at the heart of this story in
Israel and in Gaza, but the impact of the conflict
is being felt far beyond the Middle East, from Cape
Town to Paris, London and New York. Reports of hate
crimes have risen dramatically. It's a difficult evolution to measure,
but our global team of Bloomberg journalists have been collating
(01:46):
the data, allowing us to build a unique picture of
rising anti Semitism and anti Arab, anti Muslim sentiment. For
this special program, we've brought together some of the journalists
who worked on this project to hear what they found
out and some of those affected. Let's start in New York,
and our bureau chief, Katia Poorzakanski is with us for this. Katia,
(02:09):
what's changed in New York for the Jewish and Muslim
communities since the seventh of October.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
I'd say New York is on edge. The city is
a home to the largest Muslim population in the United States,
but also the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. We've
had demonstrations in the streets starting the day after the
attacks in Israel and seemingly haven't stopped it's been a
(02:41):
constant flow of demonstrations in the streets and on campuses,
and it's putting all the communities on edge.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Kati.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
A lot of this discourse has been playing out, as
you've said, in universities. What is the conversation that's being
had there? What sorts of things have we been hearing
from from people attending those universes.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So in the.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
United States, universities are in large part bound by freedom
of speech, which means you can say a lot, you
can protest, of course, you can hold signs, you can
say hateful things. In large part, universities, however, are also
bound by the Civil Rights Act. They have to protect
(03:25):
students from discrimination. So you're having this kind of strange
situation happening on campuses where the bounds of free speech
are really being tested, but at the same time administrators
are being scrutinized to make sure that they're not allowing
for discriminatory environments. The Anti Defamation League has seen a
tremendous surge in anti Semitism incidents in the country and
(03:49):
says a large bulk of them are happening on campuses.
You have assaults, threats in Cornell University a student was
arrested for making threats to kill Jews on campus and
to shoot up the Kosher dining hall. But then you
also have, you know, the perceived anti Semitism that students
(04:10):
are feeling, for example, from some of the signs that
are being held at some of the demonstrations on campus.
And that's where you get into kind of this gray
area where one student is saying, look, this is a
direct threat on my life, and another student I say,
you're misinterpreting what I'm saying here. I spoke with two
individuals who are trying to bring the two communities together,
(04:31):
Rabbi Mark Schneider and Imam shamzi Eli, and they met
with a Jewish community of students from different schools in
the New York area, and then they met with a
community of Muslim leaders similarly from the schools in the area.
And you know, one of the first things that happened
in their meeting with the Muslim leaders was the Muslim
students that we are not pro Hamas, and we are
(04:54):
being conflated as being pro Hamas. We are trying to
demonstrate for the city of Gaza that are being killed.
When you talk to Jewish students. You know, they're saying
you have signs that are saying from the river to
the sea, and that is a direct threat for the
eradication of Israel and a threat on my life potentially.
(05:17):
So these are the nuances that are appearing. But then
they're also very blatant acts of hate that are really
concerning to leaders.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
We'll come back to New York in a moment, but
I want to go next to Paris and Bloomberg's Jenny
Chain and France's home to the largest both Jewish and
Muslim communities in Europe. That's numbers based though on survey evidence,
because official statistics in France don't include religion due to
the seculers and principles and trined in French low Jenny,
I want to talk to you about how much we
know about how much hate crime has increased in France
(05:51):
since the seventh of October.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
It's really hard to quantify the change in a number
of hate crimes in France since the start of the war.
The French government has been very vocal about the rise
of the anti Semitic acts in the last few weeks,
but authorities have not been very good at providing comparative data,
particularly about the number of acts totaling Muslims in the
same period, and you have seen the government is taking
(06:17):
a different approach to these two different communities. There was
a cross country march against Scientism held earlier in November
that drew one hundred and eighty thousand people and several
government officials, including the Prime Minister, Elizabeth Won.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Obviously, it was important for me to be here with
my government to say that France must protect all of
its citizens who may be worried because of their origins,
all their religion. The government and all ministers want to
say to all our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith
that we are at their sides, we are alert, and
(06:57):
we will not let anything pass us by.
Speaker 7 (07:01):
On the other hand, a few days after the war,
the government tried to issue a blanket ban on pro
Palestinian demonstrations. Later a court rule that it was up
to regional authorities to decide on a case by case basis.
But we're seeing this uneven data in this different approach
to the communities, and that's it's made it hard to
track the difference in acts targeting Jewish people here and
(07:23):
Muslim people here.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
France has seen several high profile anti Semitic attacks in
recent years, the attacks on a Jewish school and Toulose
in twenty twelve, the supermarket attack in twenty fifteen as well.
How have the community been responding to this latest rise
in anti Semitism?
Speaker 7 (07:42):
So the government has given numbers on Antisemitic acts since
the start of the war, and there have been more
than fifteen hundred and that's more than three times all
of two thousand and two. But it's partial data, so
they haven't produced data on anti Muslim acts. But the
result has been that there is more concern within the
Jewish community and Juna dan Ashi, the president of Kreef,
(08:03):
which is an umbrella organization for Jewish groups in the country,
said that some Jewish people have changed their day to
day behaviors and that may include a notably kind of
removing outward religious symbols such as taking the star of
David Arthur Nicholas or changing their names to a lesser
Jewish stunding name when they're putting in in order on
food delivery apps.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Let's go to South Africa next. Michael Cohne is our
South Africa government reporter in Cape Town, of course, Michael.
The history of racial division as well known as South Africa.
But this is a conflict that's created a very different
kind of schism. The government's position on the Israel Hamas War.
How is that effect during the Jewish community there.
Speaker 8 (08:45):
Traditionally relationships between the Jewish community and the government have
been pretty cordial. We've seen the Rebbils being invited to
speak at major nationally ben So, You've seen the president
going to the synagogue and so on. Since startbreak of
the war, the relationship has really gone down the tube,
and the Jewish community is really really unhappy about the
position that the government has taken of Africa. Is one
(09:06):
of five Developing Nathans that's called on the Criminal Court
to investigate where the Israeli authorities are guilty of war crimes.
They are really very disappointed at the government's failure to
express their sympathies about all the people that were killed
in southern Israel. The relationship really is at an all
time and low. Incidance of anti Semitism here I've also
spiked We've seen a number of protests on a weekly basis.
(09:28):
We've seen protests from both sides. The situation really is
at its lowest ever.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Michael I wanted to bring in one of the interviews
that our team has conducted for this piece. Karen Milner
is the national chairperson of the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies. Let's take a listen to what she has
to say about this.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And we've seen over eighty incidentss of antisemitism in the
last month, and the severity of those.
Speaker 8 (09:51):
Are much much worse.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
We've seen a rabbi who was a TechEd in his car,
there was an attempt to drive him to put him
off the road that he was subject to gross into
Semitic abuse, and there was an.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Attempt to raim his car.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So that's one example of the level of fun and
anti Semitism that we're starting to see unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
So that's Karen Milner from the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies. We've also been speaking to Roshan Dado, who's
the coordinator of the South African Boycott, Devestment and Sanctions Coalition.
Let's take a listen to her position.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Well, I would.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Question the fact that there's been a search of anti
semitism because again, I think people who are opposing what
the States of Israel is doing opposing this genocide and desigonists.
It's against designs projects.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Of course, that's a very strong language that some people
would find offensive, and Jewish people would in d say
is representative of the sentiment that they're experiencing in many
parts of the world as well. Michael, how complex is
this relationship in terms of its evolution and how we
can consider how serious this increase in anti sim incidents
has been.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
The Jewish community is a really very small component of
the population, less than zero point one percent, but they
have quite a prominent role in the legal fraternity, in
business and so on. I think it's a really tricky
time for the Jewish community here. We've seen leaders saying
that the government is not standing up for them and
that they're really concerned about their future here. Most of
(11:25):
the protests that we've seen have been recently peaceful. We
had one pro Israel protest that was broken up by
some pro Palestine supporters and four people were arrested. I
think there are concerns that things could spiral out of control.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Of course, the Muslim community in South Africa is much larger.
The country home to almost a million Muslims. Have there
been a rise in incidents of Islamophobia as well.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
I haven't picked that up in any meaningful way. I
think partly because the Jewish community is so small. But
there'll be no incident of anything in that direction. I mean,
we've seen security at schools and synagogues being intensified. I
don't think them get Muslim schools and mosques.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Okay, let's come back to London next. Our reporter aim
and Firehat is here with me now. London, aiming like
New York, is somewhere where there is a significant amount
of data that can help us to understand what's happened
since the seventh of October. What numbers are available first
of all, and what have they told us about the trend?
Speaker 9 (12:26):
So according to the Metropolisan Police, on average is about
sixty cases of ant Semitic crimes in London every month,
but in October, just after the attack, there have been
five hundred and thirty three. That's almost nine times more
than usual. And for ssymophobic attacks it's the same thing.
It's about two to three times as much as the norm.
So definitely been a huge surge of it. It's also
what we hear we talk to people in the street.
I spoke to different community leaders. I spoke to rabbiosmams
(12:49):
and they're saying that tensions are very, very high. You know,
we've had mass protests on the street basically every Saturday,
and this culminated in the eleventh of November. We had
this big protest that kind of came to clash with
some far right groups. So the eleventh of November is
remembering today in the UK, remembering the fallen soldiers across
different wars, but specifically for World War One, and lots
(13:11):
of people from the far right decided to call on
their supporters that conduct to London to protect the monuments
and this did cause some clashes with the police. Eighteenth
police officers I think were injured, lots of violence there.
The protesters were mostly peaceful, but there is a lot
of tension around this.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
One of the interviews that you have conducted around this issue,
Merian Berger, is the senior rabbi of the Finchally Reformed Synagogue,
and you spoke to her just before that demonstration in London.
Speaker 10 (13:39):
I think it's a really difficult time to feel safe after.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
June in London.
Speaker 10 (13:45):
At the moment, I don't think that cancelling the rally
would have been something that would have made us feel safer.
It would have potentially made more people more committed to
doing something that you know, this way comes under the
auspices of the police to be able to patrol, to
be able to work in dialogue with the organizers, and
to be able to be in dialogue with the Jewish
(14:06):
community to say how can we help them make you
feel safe at this time. So, you know, I think
everyone's doing what they can do and hoping for the
bests that extremists don't win out. But actually the nuance
and moderate voice is the one that we hear going
forward and the one that's able to bring people together.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
And it was the question of policing that was central
to the political debate around that particular protest. Is there
a sense that authorities have moved on from that response? Now,
how are they approaching this issue given the rise and
incidances that you've told us about.
Speaker 9 (14:39):
You exactly right, politicians, some call for these marches to
be banned. At the end of the day, the met
police they have you know, plans in place to keep
people safe and all that, and when you talk to
the different community groups, whether it is you know, Miriam
who you just had the clip there, or to different
people in the Muslim community.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They do.
Speaker 9 (14:52):
You see that they are working constantly with the police
to make sure the people are safe on public transport
and these marches, and most of the time it works
very well. You know, that has been quite a positive message.
And Sidi Khan, who's a mayor of London, he's also
really put an emphasis on this kind of bringing communities together.
You know, at the remembrant service for this that was
just before this march, he had a multi faith element
where he had people from different communities giving prayers and
he really really tries to get people to work together
(15:14):
on this issue and really not talk about the divisive
topics but more bring people together.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Let's take a listen to some of that interview with Citi.
Speaker 11 (15:22):
Can you know these things have happened in the past.
This is the worst I've known it. I used to
be a communities minister in two thousand and nine when
Israel was involved in a military altercation with Gaza. I
think to Selle's really serving to the middle of January
and I remember then as a community of minister the
impact of communities across the country. But this is worse
than that.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
That was the Mayor of London City can there aim
And I wonder when we look at the response from authorities,
from the likes of Citi can as well. Does this
give the communities in London a sense of safety in
somewhere where we have seen the rise and incense like these.
Speaker 9 (15:59):
I mean, right now, safety is not worth that most
people talk about. I mean people do feel unsafe, you know,
at the moment. I think a lot of people say
that as this war goes on, if this will continuees
for however long these tensions will continue. There is a
realization that London is a good place for different communities
and eventually things will get better. But right now people
do not feel safe.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But let's go back to Paris and our reporter Jenny Chay.
We talked earlier about the French government's attempt to ban
some of these demonstrations and the subsequent legal cases that
came around. Is there a sense the French government has
come with a coherent response to this problem.
Speaker 7 (16:33):
I'm not sure they have. I spoke to Abdella Zecre,
president of the French Council of the Muslim Bates Observatory,
on Islamophobia, and you told me that it would have
been better to have a march for peace, because when
you have government officials, of course, joining a march against antisemitism,
it can leave the impression that the government is mainly
supporting Israel, and some people in the Muslim community might
(16:54):
feel alienated. At the same time, the government has also
not really been able to provide coherent data on the exacts.
I mean, they're obviously speaking a lot about the rise
of anti Semitic acts since the war, but the fact
that they haven't given comparative data for acts against Muslims
over the same period it raises questions about the kind
of data that is being compiled and whether it's being
(17:15):
compiled in a way that makes it easy to analyze
so that the country can track these racists and discriminatory
acts during times of conflict, but also during normal times.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Katia Poisikanski in New York, you talked to through the
debates that are happening in universities, the demonstrations that are
happening in the streets of New York City are communities
both Jewish and Muslim, feeling comforted by the actions taken
by authorities.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
In terms of school authorities. No, I think everyone is
displeased on both sides. The Department of Education has now
opened seven investigations into schools in the United States. Three
of those schools are in New York for discrimination, so
the pressure is on for them to kind of get
the situation under control, but both sides are disappointed. For example,
(18:03):
in Columbia University, they suspended temporarily two of the pro
Palestinian student groups for repeated violations when it comes to
their demonstrations, including one that proceeded against the rules that
included intimidation. But by shutting down those groups, they've now
spurred all sorts of accusations of shutting down free speech,
chilling criticism of Israel, and faculty and students have written
(18:26):
in protest against the school for doing that. From the
Jewish community, they want to see more action taking place.
They want to see quicker responses to acts of anti Semitism.
A few students at Columbia University gave press conference a
few weeks ago about anti Semitism that they've faced at
the school and how there has been an unsatisfying response
(18:47):
from administrators to investigate those accusations.
Speaker 12 (18:51):
My Jewish sisters and brothers and I are on the
receiving end of death threats from our peers. Undergraduates who
have filed reports about these intents have been left with
no emotional support, no feedback, and no consequences for the
perpetrators of these hateful actions. As a result of this
in action, there are Jewish students who do not feel
(19:11):
physically safe on campus.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
At Cooper Union, several students came out and said they
felt completely unsupported by the school. When there was a
protest that got intimidating and there was some students that
entered a library. There were some Jewish, visibly Jewish students
in the library behind a glass wall and the protesters
were banging on the wall. That was a very intimidating
(19:38):
moment for those students. So there was a lot of
scrutiny on that event, like what happened? Did the school
not have control over that protest? So there's an investigation
there too, So that is something that administrators are currently
grappling with. There's also been a tremendous scrutiny from alums, donors,
and employers. We reported about a list of dozens and
(20:01):
dozens of law firms that wrote to the top law
schools in the country, saying you have to do more
to protect against anti Semitism on your campuses with kind
of you know, a veiled threat there. If you don't know,
we're going to be thinking twice about hiring from your schools.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Indicative of some of the high profile attentions that's being
paid to this issue in New York Michael Cohen and
Cape Town. Is there a sense that that same attention
is being paid to this issue where you are.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
I think there have been recent attempts by the government
to kind of cool things down, But we had a
prison sam up of the writer a weekly letter to
the nation in which you was saying there's no place
for violence or threats or threats of violence against those
who hold country reviews, that South Africa's painful history must
be a reminder about the cost of a divided society.
(20:51):
And there have been meetings between Jewish organizations and the government,
but at the same time, the government's actions are clearly
reiterating its extremely pro Palestinian and anti Israel stant I
don't think while the Judicia organizations that said they appreciate
that the meetings with the government and so on, and
don't they through the authorities are taking any kind of
steps to defuse the situation in a way, and they're
(21:14):
still really unhappy at the stunts of the government to take.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Okay, I want to come back here to London and
bring you one more clip of another interview. This is
with imman Ata, who's the director of tel Mamma, which
is the national Anti Muslim Hater, Islamophobia Monitoring and support service.
Speaker 6 (21:35):
Listen, as long as the conflict is right, Palestini is going,
I don't think things will stop here, although it's thousands
of miles away from us, by impacting our communities here heavily.
Unless that conflict stops, that's when things maybe would start
coming back to normal. And I wouldn't say it would
come back to normal as you'll see everyone happy and
everyone talking with each other. No, it will take a
lot of time, and there are bridges that must probably
(21:57):
have been broken through our bridges that are shaken. Certain
ones almost probably can get back to reconnecting, but there's
many bridges unfortunately got broken this time because people are
just too angry, people that have got too many emotions going,
People are grieving, people lost loved ones, and people just
don't seem to see the humanity in each other.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
That's a Manuta of Tealmama speaking to Aim and fire
house Aim and I wonder we've heard this from various interviews,
there being a sense of breakdown among the community's. London
prides itself on being this multicultural city that welcomes communities
from all over. Is there a sense that the damage
that has been done can be repaired.
Speaker 9 (22:41):
I think what happens in the Middle East is a huge,
huge impact on what happens in London. Even though it's
thousands of miles away, it still affects people here. There's
just so much trauma. You know, as you said in
that clip, you know, people have lost loved ones and
people are very angry with you know, on both sides.
The politician's rhetoric doesn't help either. You know, some people
have been flaming things. Social media as well is a
huge issue. I think, is this whole debate tell mom Actually,
(23:01):
in their own data, they showed that more than half
of hate crimes is online. I think the online community,
the online space, is helping stick a lot of this hate,
keep people angry, keep people in these echo chambers, and
so right now it seems very very difficult until things
get resolved in the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
Bloomberg's aim in Farhat in London, Katti of Porzikanski in
New York, Jenny Chay in Paris, and Michael Cohen in
Cape Town. Thank you to you all. After we recorded
this conversation, three college students of Palestinian descent were shot
and seriously injured near the University of Vermont's campus in Burlington,
or Police said they have no additional information to suggest
(23:46):
a motive. They noted that two of the victims were
wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as cafeas at the time
of the assault. I'm Stephen Carroll. Thank you for listening.
This is Bloomberg.
We celebrate in love and we danced.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Then it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Then the rockets started in gunshots everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
We managed to escape, but.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
There are a lot of friends that didn't.
Speaker 4 (00:15):
What we will do to our enemies in the coming days,
will reverberate with them for generations.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
A missile hit in the square and there was rubble
hitting us. As we were walking. There was glass metal.
It was like doomsday.
Speaker 5 (00:35):
There are civilians here whom are not our enemy, and
we do not want to target them. We are asking
them to evacuate.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
There are fifty people in the house without any food, drink, water,
or electricity.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know how we'll provide food for our children.
Speaker 6 (00:51):
War isn't what we're looking for, but war was forced
upon us by a bloodthirsty terrorist organization.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
On the seventh of October, Hamas attacked Israel. One two
hundred people were killed and more than two hundred others
taken to Gaza as hostages. It was the largest loss
of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Israel's military response was swift.
At the time of this recording, Gaza's Hamas run government
says more than fifteen thousand people have been killed there,
(01:25):
including thousands of children a moment ago. You heard from
some of those at the heart of this story in
Israel and in Gaza, but the impact of the conflict
is being felt far beyond the Middle East, from Cape
Town to Paris, London and New York. Reports of hate
crimes have risen dramatically. It's a difficult evolution to measure,
but our global team of Bloomberg journalists have been collating
(01:46):
the data, allowing us to build a unique picture of
rising anti Semitism and anti Arab, anti Muslim sentiment. For
this special program, we've brought together some of the journalists
who worked on this project to hear what they found
out and some of those affected. Let's start in New York,
and our bureau chief, Katia Poorzakanski is with us for this. Katia,
(02:09):
what's changed in New York for the Jewish and Muslim
communities since the seventh of October.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
I'd say New York is on edge. The city is
a home to the largest Muslim population in the United States,
but also the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. We've
had demonstrations in the streets starting the day after the
attacks in Israel and seemingly haven't stopped it's been a
(02:41):
constant flow of demonstrations in the streets and on campuses,
and it's putting all the communities on edge.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Kati.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
A lot of this discourse has been playing out, as
you've said, in universities. What is the conversation that's being
had there? What sorts of things have we been hearing
from from people attending those universes.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So in the.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
United States, universities are in large part bound by freedom
of speech, which means you can say a lot, you
can protest, of course, you can hold signs, you can
say hateful things. In large part, universities, however, are also
bound by the Civil Rights Act. They have to protect
(03:25):
students from discrimination. So you're having this kind of strange
situation happening on campuses where the bounds of free speech
are really being tested, but at the same time administrators
are being scrutinized to make sure that they're not allowing
for discriminatory environments. The Anti Defamation League has seen a
tremendous surge in anti Semitism incidents in the country and
(03:49):
says a large bulk of them are happening on campuses.
You have assaults, threats in Cornell University a student was
arrested for making threats to kill Jews on campus and
to shoot up the Kosher dining hall. But then you
also have, you know, the perceived anti Semitism that students
(04:10):
are feeling, for example, from some of the signs that
are being held at some of the demonstrations on campus.
And that's where you get into kind of this gray
area where one student is saying, look, this is a
direct threat on my life, and another student I say,
you're misinterpreting what I'm saying here. I spoke with two
individuals who are trying to bring the two communities together,
(04:31):
Rabbi Mark Schneider and Imam shamzi Eli, and they met
with a Jewish community of students from different schools in
the New York area, and then they met with a
community of Muslim leaders similarly from the schools in the area.
And you know, one of the first things that happened
in their meeting with the Muslim leaders was the Muslim
students that we are not pro Hamas, and we are
(04:54):
being conflated as being pro Hamas. We are trying to
demonstrate for the city of Gaza that are being killed.
When you talk to Jewish students. You know, they're saying
you have signs that are saying from the river to
the sea, and that is a direct threat for the
eradication of Israel and a threat on my life potentially.
(05:17):
So these are the nuances that are appearing. But then
they're also very blatant acts of hate that are really
concerning to leaders.
Speaker 5 (05:29):
We'll come back to New York in a moment, but
I want to go next to Paris and Bloomberg's Jenny
Chain and France's home to the largest both Jewish and
Muslim communities in Europe. That's numbers based though on survey evidence,
because official statistics in France don't include religion due to
the seculers and principles and trined in French low Jenny,
I want to talk to you about how much we
know about how much hate crime has increased in France
(05:51):
since the seventh of October.
Speaker 7 (05:53):
It's really hard to quantify the change in a number
of hate crimes in France since the start of the war.
The French government has been very vocal about the rise
of the anti Semitic acts in the last few weeks,
but authorities have not been very good at providing comparative data,
particularly about the number of acts totaling Muslims in the
same period, and you have seen the government is taking
(06:17):
a different approach to these two different communities. There was
a cross country march against Scientism held earlier in November
that drew one hundred and eighty thousand people and several
government officials, including the Prime Minister, Elizabeth Won.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Obviously, it was important for me to be here with
my government to say that France must protect all of
its citizens who may be worried because of their origins,
all their religion. The government and all ministers want to
say to all our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith
that we are at their sides, we are alert, and
(06:57):
we will not let anything pass us by.
Speaker 7 (07:01):
On the other hand, a few days after the war,
the government tried to issue a blanket ban on pro
Palestinian demonstrations. Later a court rule that it was up
to regional authorities to decide on a case by case basis.
But we're seeing this uneven data in this different approach
to the communities, and that's it's made it hard to
track the difference in acts targeting Jewish people here and
(07:23):
Muslim people here.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
France has seen several high profile anti Semitic attacks in
recent years, the attacks on a Jewish school and Toulose
in twenty twelve, the supermarket attack in twenty fifteen as well.
How have the community been responding to this latest rise
in anti Semitism?
Speaker 7 (07:42):
So the government has given numbers on Antisemitic acts since
the start of the war, and there have been more
than fifteen hundred and that's more than three times all
of two thousand and two. But it's partial data, so
they haven't produced data on anti Muslim acts. But the
result has been that there is more concern within the
Jewish community and Juna dan Ashi, the president of Kreef,
(08:03):
which is an umbrella organization for Jewish groups in the country,
said that some Jewish people have changed their day to
day behaviors and that may include a notably kind of
removing outward religious symbols such as taking the star of
David Arthur Nicholas or changing their names to a lesser
Jewish stunding name when they're putting in in order on
food delivery apps.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
Let's go to South Africa next. Michael Cohne is our
South Africa government reporter in Cape Town, of course, Michael.
The history of racial division as well known as South Africa.
But this is a conflict that's created a very different
kind of schism. The government's position on the Israel Hamas War.
How is that effect during the Jewish community there.
Speaker 8 (08:45):
Traditionally relationships between the Jewish community and the government have
been pretty cordial. We've seen the Rebbils being invited to
speak at major nationally ben So, You've seen the president
going to the synagogue and so on. Since startbreak of
the war, the relationship has really gone down the tube,
and the Jewish community is really really unhappy about the
position that the government has taken of Africa. Is one
(09:06):
of five Developing Nathans that's called on the Criminal Court
to investigate where the Israeli authorities are guilty of war crimes.
They are really very disappointed at the government's failure to
express their sympathies about all the people that were killed
in southern Israel. The relationship really is at an all
time and low. Incidance of anti Semitism here I've also
spiked We've seen a number of protests on a weekly basis.
(09:28):
We've seen protests from both sides. The situation really is
at its lowest ever.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
Michael I wanted to bring in one of the interviews
that our team has conducted for this piece. Karen Milner
is the national chairperson of the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies. Let's take a listen to what she has
to say about this.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
And we've seen over eighty incidentss of antisemitism in the
last month, and the severity of those.
Speaker 8 (09:51):
Are much much worse.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
We've seen a rabbi who was a TechEd in his car,
there was an attempt to drive him to put him
off the road that he was subject to gross into
Semitic abuse, and there was an.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Attempt to raim his car.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
So that's one example of the level of fun and
anti Semitism that we're starting to see unfortunately.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
So that's Karen Milner from the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies. We've also been speaking to Roshan Dado, who's
the coordinator of the South African Boycott, Devestment and Sanctions Coalition.
Let's take a listen to her position.
Speaker 8 (10:25):
Well, I would.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Question the fact that there's been a search of anti
semitism because again, I think people who are opposing what
the States of Israel is doing opposing this genocide and desigonists.
It's against designs projects.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
Of course, that's a very strong language that some people
would find offensive, and Jewish people would in d say
is representative of the sentiment that they're experiencing in many
parts of the world as well. Michael, how complex is
this relationship in terms of its evolution and how we
can consider how serious this increase in anti sim incidents
has been.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
The Jewish community is a really very small component of
the population, less than zero point one percent, but they
have quite a prominent role in the legal fraternity, in
business and so on. I think it's a really tricky
time for the Jewish community here. We've seen leaders saying
that the government is not standing up for them and
that they're really concerned about their future here. Most of
(11:25):
the protests that we've seen have been recently peaceful. We
had one pro Israel protest that was broken up by
some pro Palestine supporters and four people were arrested. I
think there are concerns that things could spiral out of control.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
Of course, the Muslim community in South Africa is much larger.
The country home to almost a million Muslims. Have there
been a rise in incidents of Islamophobia as well.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
I haven't picked that up in any meaningful way. I
think partly because the Jewish community is so small. But
there'll be no incident of anything in that direction. I mean,
we've seen security at schools and synagogues being intensified. I
don't think them get Muslim schools and mosques.
Speaker 5 (12:11):
Okay, let's come back to London next. Our reporter aim
and Firehat is here with me now. London, aiming like
New York, is somewhere where there is a significant amount
of data that can help us to understand what's happened
since the seventh of October. What numbers are available first
of all, and what have they told us about the trend?
Speaker 9 (12:26):
So according to the Metropolisan Police, on average is about
sixty cases of ant Semitic crimes in London every month,
but in October, just after the attack, there have been
five hundred and thirty three. That's almost nine times more
than usual. And for ssymophobic attacks it's the same thing.
It's about two to three times as much as the norm.
So definitely been a huge surge of it. It's also
what we hear we talk to people in the street.
I spoke to different community leaders. I spoke to rabbiosmams
(12:49):
and they're saying that tensions are very, very high. You know,
we've had mass protests on the street basically every Saturday,
and this culminated in the eleventh of November. We had
this big protest that kind of came to clash with
some far right groups. So the eleventh of November is
remembering today in the UK, remembering the fallen soldiers across
different wars, but specifically for World War One, and lots
(13:11):
of people from the far right decided to call on
their supporters that conduct to London to protect the monuments
and this did cause some clashes with the police. Eighteenth
police officers I think were injured, lots of violence there.
The protesters were mostly peaceful, but there is a lot
of tension around this.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
One of the interviews that you have conducted around this issue,
Merian Berger, is the senior rabbi of the Finchally Reformed Synagogue,
and you spoke to her just before that demonstration in London.
Speaker 10 (13:39):
I think it's a really difficult time to feel safe after.
Speaker 9 (13:42):
June in London.
Speaker 10 (13:45):
At the moment, I don't think that cancelling the rally
would have been something that would have made us feel safer.
It would have potentially made more people more committed to
doing something that you know, this way comes under the
auspices of the police to be able to patrol, to
be able to work in dialogue with the organizers, and
to be able to be in dialogue with the Jewish
(14:06):
community to say how can we help them make you
feel safe at this time. So, you know, I think
everyone's doing what they can do and hoping for the
bests that extremists don't win out. But actually the nuance
and moderate voice is the one that we hear going
forward and the one that's able to bring people together.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
And it was the question of policing that was central
to the political debate around that particular protest. Is there
a sense that authorities have moved on from that response? Now,
how are they approaching this issue given the rise and
incidances that you've told us about.
Speaker 9 (14:39):
You exactly right, politicians, some call for these marches to
be banned. At the end of the day, the met
police they have you know, plans in place to keep
people safe and all that, and when you talk to
the different community groups, whether it is you know, Miriam
who you just had the clip there, or to different
people in the Muslim community.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They do.
Speaker 9 (14:52):
You see that they are working constantly with the police
to make sure the people are safe on public transport
and these marches, and most of the time it works
very well. You know, that has been quite a positive message.
And Sidi Khan, who's a mayor of London, he's also
really put an emphasis on this kind of bringing communities together.
You know, at the remembrant service for this that was
just before this march, he had a multi faith element
where he had people from different communities giving prayers and
he really really tries to get people to work together
(15:14):
on this issue and really not talk about the divisive
topics but more bring people together.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Let's take a listen to some of that interview with Citi.
Speaker 11 (15:22):
Can you know these things have happened in the past.
This is the worst I've known it. I used to
be a communities minister in two thousand and nine when
Israel was involved in a military altercation with Gaza. I
think to Selle's really serving to the middle of January
and I remember then as a community of minister the
impact of communities across the country. But this is worse
than that.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
That was the Mayor of London City can there aim
And I wonder when we look at the response from authorities,
from the likes of Citi can as well. Does this
give the communities in London a sense of safety in
somewhere where we have seen the rise and incense like these.
Speaker 9 (15:59):
I mean, right now, safety is not worth that most
people talk about. I mean people do feel unsafe, you know,
at the moment. I think a lot of people say
that as this war goes on, if this will continuees
for however long these tensions will continue. There is a
realization that London is a good place for different communities
and eventually things will get better. But right now people
do not feel safe.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
But let's go back to Paris and our reporter Jenny Chay.
We talked earlier about the French government's attempt to ban
some of these demonstrations and the subsequent legal cases that
came around. Is there a sense the French government has
come with a coherent response to this problem.
Speaker 7 (16:33):
I'm not sure they have. I spoke to Abdella Zecre,
president of the French Council of the Muslim Bates Observatory,
on Islamophobia, and you told me that it would have
been better to have a march for peace, because when
you have government officials, of course, joining a march against antisemitism,
it can leave the impression that the government is mainly
supporting Israel, and some people in the Muslim community might
(16:54):
feel alienated. At the same time, the government has also
not really been able to provide coherent data on the exacts.
I mean, they're obviously speaking a lot about the rise
of anti Semitic acts since the war, but the fact
that they haven't given comparative data for acts against Muslims
over the same period it raises questions about the kind
of data that is being compiled and whether it's being
(17:15):
compiled in a way that makes it easy to analyze
so that the country can track these racists and discriminatory
acts during times of conflict, but also during normal times.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
Katia Poisikanski in New York, you talked to through the
debates that are happening in universities, the demonstrations that are
happening in the streets of New York City are communities
both Jewish and Muslim, feeling comforted by the actions taken
by authorities.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
In terms of school authorities. No, I think everyone is
displeased on both sides. The Department of Education has now
opened seven investigations into schools in the United States. Three
of those schools are in New York for discrimination, so
the pressure is on for them to kind of get
the situation under control, but both sides are disappointed. For example,
(18:03):
in Columbia University, they suspended temporarily two of the pro
Palestinian student groups for repeated violations when it comes to
their demonstrations, including one that proceeded against the rules that
included intimidation. But by shutting down those groups, they've now
spurred all sorts of accusations of shutting down free speech,
chilling criticism of Israel, and faculty and students have written
(18:26):
in protest against the school for doing that. From the
Jewish community, they want to see more action taking place.
They want to see quicker responses to acts of anti Semitism.
A few students at Columbia University gave press conference a
few weeks ago about anti Semitism that they've faced at
the school and how there has been an unsatisfying response
(18:47):
from administrators to investigate those accusations.
Speaker 12 (18:51):
My Jewish sisters and brothers and I are on the
receiving end of death threats from our peers. Undergraduates who
have filed reports about these intents have been left with
no emotional support, no feedback, and no consequences for the
perpetrators of these hateful actions. As a result of this
in action, there are Jewish students who do not feel
(19:11):
physically safe on campus.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
At Cooper Union, several students came out and said they
felt completely unsupported by the school. When there was a
protest that got intimidating and there was some students that
entered a library. There were some Jewish, visibly Jewish students
in the library behind a glass wall and the protesters
were banging on the wall. That was a very intimidating
(19:38):
moment for those students. So there was a lot of
scrutiny on that event, like what happened? Did the school
not have control over that protest? So there's an investigation
there too, So that is something that administrators are currently
grappling with. There's also been a tremendous scrutiny from alums, donors,
and employers. We reported about a list of dozens and
(20:01):
dozens of law firms that wrote to the top law
schools in the country, saying you have to do more
to protect against anti Semitism on your campuses with kind
of you know, a veiled threat there. If you don't know,
we're going to be thinking twice about hiring from your schools.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Indicative of some of the high profile attentions that's being
paid to this issue in New York Michael Cohen and
Cape Town. Is there a sense that that same attention
is being paid to this issue where you are.
Speaker 8 (20:29):
I think there have been recent attempts by the government
to kind of cool things down, But we had a
prison sam up of the writer a weekly letter to
the nation in which you was saying there's no place
for violence or threats or threats of violence against those
who hold country reviews, that South Africa's painful history must
be a reminder about the cost of a divided society.
(20:51):
And there have been meetings between Jewish organizations and the government,
but at the same time, the government's actions are clearly
reiterating its extremely pro Palestinian and anti Israel stant I
don't think while the Judicia organizations that said they appreciate
that the meetings with the government and so on, and
don't they through the authorities are taking any kind of
steps to defuse the situation in a way, and they're
(21:14):
still really unhappy at the stunts of the government to take.
Speaker 5 (21:21):
Okay, I want to come back here to London and
bring you one more clip of another interview. This is
with imman Ata, who's the director of tel Mamma, which
is the national Anti Muslim Hater, Islamophobia Monitoring and support service.
Speaker 6 (21:35):
Listen, as long as the conflict is right, Palestini is going,
I don't think things will stop here, although it's thousands
of miles away from us, by impacting our communities here heavily.
Unless that conflict stops, that's when things maybe would start
coming back to normal. And I wouldn't say it would
come back to normal as you'll see everyone happy and
everyone talking with each other. No, it will take a
lot of time, and there are bridges that must probably
(21:57):
have been broken through our bridges that are shaken. Certain
ones almost probably can get back to reconnecting, but there's
many bridges unfortunately got broken this time because people are
just too angry, people that have got too many emotions going,
People are grieving, people lost loved ones, and people just
don't seem to see the humanity in each other.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
That's a Manuta of Tealmama speaking to Aim and fire
house Aim and I wonder we've heard this from various interviews,
there being a sense of breakdown among the community's. London
prides itself on being this multicultural city that welcomes communities
from all over. Is there a sense that the damage
that has been done can be repaired.
Speaker 9 (22:41):
I think what happens in the Middle East is a huge,
huge impact on what happens in London. Even though it's
thousands of miles away, it still affects people here. There's
just so much trauma. You know, as you said in
that clip, you know, people have lost loved ones and
people are very angry with you know, on both sides.
The politician's rhetoric doesn't help either. You know, some people
have been flaming things. Social media as well is a
huge issue. I think, is this whole debate tell mom Actually,
(23:01):
in their own data, they showed that more than half
of hate crimes is online. I think the online community,
the online space, is helping stick a lot of this hate,
keep people angry, keep people in these echo chambers, and
so right now it seems very very difficult until things
get resolved in the Middle East.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
Bloomberg's aim in Farhat in London, Katti of Porzikanski in
New York, Jenny Chay in Paris, and Michael Cohen in
Cape Town. Thank you to you all. After we recorded
this conversation, three college students of Palestinian descent were shot
and seriously injured near the University of Vermont's campus in Burlington,
or Police said they have no additional information to suggest
(23:46):
a motive. They noted that two of the victims were
wearing traditional Palestinian scarves known as cafeas at the time
of the assault. I'm Stephen Carroll. Thank you for listening.
This is Bloomberg.
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