Meanwhile, Oregon notched a record 40 antisemitic incidents last year, and the remaining states in the Pacific Northwest – Alaska, Idaho and Montana – also saw increases.
“In 2022, Jewish communities across the Pacific Northwest continued to experience unacceptably high levels of antisemitism, including vandalism, harassment, and targeting by individuals and right-wing extremists at their homes, neighborhoods, and communities,” Miri Cypers, a regional director for ADL, said in a statement. “Acts of antisemitism and hate don’t simply impact a victim, they are meant to send shockwaves into the public and instill fear into marginalized communities.”
The Pacific Northwest has long been a haven of white nationalists and other forms of extremism, and the region likewise has a long history of activists fighting against those elements.
While the report does not attribute last year’s increase in antisemitic incidents to any single ideology or cause, an associate regional director for the ADL said there have been more organized efforts by groups.
“The biggest single source for the increase in antisemitic incidents in 2022 was the activity of organized right-wing extremist and white supremacist groups, who were responsible for 945 incidents,” said Stephen Paolini, who works for the ADL’s Pacific Northwest office in Seattle. “This is almost double the 484 incidents that these groups were responsible for in 2021. The vast majority [90%] of this white supremacist activity took the form of propaganda distributions, with 852 incidents perpetrated by groups like GDL, White Lives Matter, Folksfront, and others.”
In a statement, the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle called the new report “shocking, but not surprising.”
“It’s an alarming trend that has been building for the past seven years,” according to the statement from the Federation, which helps represent the Jewish community in Puget Sound. “More people believe in antisemitic tropes. More hold antisemitic attitudes. Anti-Jewish speech by high-profile individuals spreads on social media, incites hatred, spreads fear, and elevates antisemitism from the social fringe to the cultural mainstream.”
Asked about the report in a regularly scheduled news conference, Gov. Jay Inslee called the findings “super-disturbing to us, because this has been a multicentury virus of hate.”
He added: “All of us need to speak out against it as much as we can.”
