Research & Analysis

May 02, 2019 On Saturday, April 27, 2019, A man opened fire at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in Poway, California, killing one worshipper, a 60-year-old woman who was mourning her mother’s recent death, and injuring three more, including the rabbi. Police apprehended John T. Earnest as the sole suspect in the shooting. It was the Jewish sabbath and the last day of Passover, a holiday celebrating the Jews’ delivery from oppression. Earnest, 19, was a nursing student in nearby…

May 02, 2019 Anti-Semitic fliering posted outside the Chabad Lubavitch Center in Ocean City, Maryland The April 27 shooting attack on a Poway, California, synagogue served as a stark reminder that white supremacists remain a significant threat to Jewish institutions. Not that anyone needed a reminder; the Poway assault took place just six months after Robert Bowers’ October 27, 2018 shooting rampage at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The attack on the Tree of Life synagogue…

April 25, 2019 On April 20, FBI agents arrested a New Mexico border vigilante leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins (aka “Johnny Horton, Jr.”) on charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. The arrest occurred just days after members of Hopkins’ group, the United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), attracted considerable attention and condemnation for detaining at gunpoint several hundred asylum-seeking migrants and families crossing the border near El Paso, Texas. The two…

April 16, 2019 Accelerationism is a term white supremacists have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it. The term is widely used by those on the fringes of the movement, who employ it openly and enthusiastically on mainstream platforms, as well as in the shadows of private, encrypted chat rooms.  We have also recently seen tragic instances of its manifestation in the real world. The concept of acceleration has existed for years as a fringe philosophy…

April 12, 2019 In late March, FBI agents arrested a Pennsylvania white supremacist for allegedly making racist threats online. On April 1, 2019, Corbin Kauffman of Lehighton, Pennsylvania, was charged with interstate transmission of threats to injure the person of another. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the maximum penalty for this offense is five years of imprisonment for each violation and a term of supervised release following imprisonment and a fine, but judges are given…

April 12, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 Congress holds a hearing on the growing threat posed by white nationalism and increase in hate crimes; anti-vaccination advocates are misappropriating Holocaust imagery to push their agenda; and Airbnb reneges on its decision to de-list properties in the West Bank. Read on for more on these headlines, news you can use to fight hate this week, and the latest info about ADL around the country.   1 A Flood Online of Hate Speech Greets…

April 09, 2019 THE WEEK'S BIG 3 A new report this week suggests the Department of Homeland Security seems to be willfully ignoring the threat posed by right-wing extremism; a new task force has been convened by two Jewish organizations to track anti-religious violence; and Utah enacts a new, improved and comprehensive hate crimes law. Read on for more on these headlines, news you can use to fight hate this week, and the latest info about ADL around the country.   1 …

March 20, 2019 The U.S. Department of Education (DoED) recently announced that it will ignore a longstanding requirement of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) limiting federally funded contracts, which provide schools with services such as special education or instruction, to secular vendors.  As a result, religious organizations, including houses of worship, are now eligible to be such contractors.  This decision is not legally required, will compel taxpayers to fund…

In the latest indication that violent white supremacists pose an international terrorist threat, an apparent white supremacist went on a shooting rampage at two mosques in central Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday, reportedly killing 50 people and wounding many others. Australian police have identified the alleged shooter as Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian-born man. This latest white supremacist violence underscores the fact that white supremacy is a…

February 18, 2019 Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam teamed up with a Holocaust denier and anti-Semitic ideologue to attack the Jewish religion and blame numerous ills of modern society on Jews, during the keynote event at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours' Day conference in Chicago. Speaking before a crowd of several thousand at the United Center and an unknown number on a livestream, Farrakhan was preceded by Michael A. Hoffman II, who suggested that ancient…

February 06, 2019 When Dylann Roof murdered nine people in a racially motivated shooting spree at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, reactions from fellow white supremacists were all over the map. While some praised the shootings, others claimed the attack was fabricated by the government or Jews to cast a bad light on white supremacists.  Some criticized Roof, believing he would attract negative publicity and unwelcome law enforcement…

January 15, 2019 White supremacist online forum Fascist Forge advertises itself as a “Home for the 21st Century Fascist,” and attracts some of the movement’s most extreme adherents.  Launched in May 2018, the forum is modeled after (and serves as homage to) the defunct fascist social networking platform “Iron March,” founded by Russian nationalist Alisher Mukhitdinov, aka Alexander Slavros.  Fascist Forge’s founder and moderator goes by the…

December 17, 2018 FBI agents and Snohomish County deputies arrested a Washington state white supremacist last week for allegedly making threats to carry out mass killings of Jews and other minorities.  Dakota Reed, 20, of Monroe, Washington, was charged with malicious harassment—Washington’s hate crime statute—and making bomb threats.  Authorities also seized a cache of firearms, ammunition and white supremacist propaganda from Reed’s residence. The…

December 13, 2018 On December 9, a group of eight individuals associated with the racist skinhead movement were arrested in Lynnwood, Washington, for allegedly assaulting and shouting racial slurs at the DJ at the Rec Room Bar. The DJ, a black man, was reportedly punched and stomped on during the altercation. Each of the eight individuals faces malicious harassment hate crime charges for their alleged role in the assault. Those charged in the assault include Travis David Condor of…

November 15, 2018 In a chilling postscript to Robert Bowers’ murderous October shooting spree at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, authorities in Washington, D.C., arrested Jeffrey Raphiel Clark, Jr., 30, an on-line associate of Bowers. The November 9 arrest came after family members contacted law enforcement out of concern that Clark might become violent. Clark was charged with illegal transportation of a firearm across state lines, possession of an illegal high-capacity…