Extremism, Anti-Semitism In MA: 239 Incidents In 2019

BOSTON — In 2019, Massachusetts reported 239 incidents of extremism and anti-Semitism, a sharp increase from the 173 incidents reported in 2018, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The occurrences in Massachusetts were among the 4,015 examples of extremist and anti-Semitic incidents nationwide in 2019. The figure reported for 2019 is up almost 32 percent from the 3,052 incidents reported in 2018, according to the ADL.

While the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Massachusetts actually fell from 2018 to 2019, from 142 to 94, the number of reports involving distribution of white supremacist propaganda more than quadrupled, from 35 in 2018 to 148 in 2019, the ADL said. Most of the 2019 cases were traced to the Patriot Front, a white supremacist alt-right group that distributed leaflets in many towns bearings slogans such as "Reclaim America" and 'One nation against invasion."

The Anti-Defamation League tracks the incidents through news and media reports, government documents (including police reports), victim reports, extremist-related sources and the Center on Extremism investigations, according to a “Frequently Asked Questions” section on the ADL’s website.

The Anti-Defamation League’s interactive map includes information on incidents involving anti-Semitism, white supremacist propaganda, white supremacist events, extremist-police shootouts, terrorist plots and attacks and extremist murders.

Along with providing the first-of-its-kind interactive and customizable map detailing extremist and anti-Semitic incidents around the nation, the ADL also provides information on the annual quantity of white supremacist propaganda that gets spread throughout the country.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported 2,713 cases of circulated propaganda by white supremacist groups in 2019, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.

Oren Segal, director of the League’s Center on Extremism, pointed to the prominence of more subtly biased rhetoric in some white supremacist material, emphasizing “patriotism.”

By emphasizing language “about empowerment, without some of the blatant racism and hatred,” Segal told the Associated Press, white supremacists are using a “tactic to try to get eyes onto their ideas in a way that’s cheap, and that brings it to a new generation of people who are learning how to even make sense out of these messages.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism as well as other biases, describes its mission as “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

You can find the complete interactive map on the ADL’s website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.