Kol Israel panel addresses hate in Northeast Ohio | Local News

A panel including representation from the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League and John Carroll University spoke to the issue of hate in Northeast Ohio at a virtual event hosted by Kol Israel Foundation and the regional ADL office Jan. 27.

“It is fitting to discuss present-day hate crimes in our own backyard on International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” Hedy Milgrom, a member of Kol Israel Foundation’s board, said in introducing the event. She said the United Nations designated the date to coincide with the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her mother and aunt were both imprisoned and victims of Josef Mengele, “who performed horrific inhumane experiments on identical twins.” Milgrom’s mother and aunt were also forced on a death march on Jan. 18, their 24th birthdays.

“My family, and I’m sure many of your’s, knows too well what can happen when hate is permitted to proliferate,” Milgrom said.

Andrew Mizsak, Kol Israel Foundation board member, moderated the event and asked three panelists about the nature of hate crimes, their perpetrators, laws and enforcement.

Julie Yelk, special agent in the Cleveland office of the FBI and panelist, said the civil rights program, under which hate crimes are investigated, “is a top five priority of the FBI.”

“When you think of everything that the FBI investigates, from violent crimes to domestic terrorism, international terrorism, civil rights is our number five priority – so something that the FBI, as a nation, takes very seriously as we partner with our U.S. Attorney’s offices and the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute these crimes.”

She encouraged the more than 85 people registered for the event to report any antisemitism and hate, and to record suspicious incidents using cellphone videos if possible.

“Of course that’s the best evidence when it comes to something like this,” she said. “Eye-witness accounts and video is great from the investigative point of view because it shows what actually happened.”

She said if hate email is received, to save it, and if physical hate mail is received to handle it as little as possible and to report it.

She said no incident is too small to report.

“It’s never a bad idea to report something, no matter how small, especially to local law enforcement because your local law enforcement are going to be the first ones to respond to your community – typically they know the community members,” she said.

Panelist Richard Clark, chair of the department of sociology and criminology at John Carroll University in University Heights, explained that the aim of hate crimes is to “silence you, it’s to target you, it’s to make you feel vulnerable, it’s to make you feel afraid, it’s to make you go away.”

He also spoke of the roots of white replacement theory that originated in France following an influx of immigration from the Middle East and was picked up at the deadly Unite the Right rally Aug. 11 and Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va.

He said hate has been on the rise through the years of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, “changing the norms of what’s acceptable.”

Clark spoke of the need to challenge messages of hate, even in family situations.

“If you and I don’t challenge hate behavior, then we’re saying it’s either acceptable, or we lack the power to change, which then just reinforces the hatred,” he said.

He said perpetrators of hate crimes look for scapegoats for their life circumstances and form hate groups to establish a sense of belonging.

“Hate is a bonding mechanism and allows (them) to feel secure in (their) insecurity,” he said.

Panelist James Pasch, regional director of the ADL Cleveland, spoke of the rising incidence of antisemitism in Northeast Ohio.

“It’s important not to sugarcoat what we’re seeing locally here, which is (in) 2020, we reported the highest amount of antisemitic incidents that the state of Ohio has seen since ADL began tracking incidents in the 1970s,” Pasch said. “And I will say that although we have not completed our 2021 audit, our phone did not ring any less in 2021 than it did in 2020. And so the trend lines are clearly going in the wrong direction. Nationally, 2020 was the third highest year on record for antisemitic incidents that we’ve seen. But right here in Ohio, (2020 was) both the highest amount and the highest percent increase year over year that we’ve ever had.”

Pasch referred to the Jan. 15 hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, saying the hostage taker did so “under the guise of an age-old, antisemitic conspiracy theory, right? That Jews are all powerful, and we control the world.”

The hostage taker, Pasch said, believed that demanding the release of a prisoner from the Federal Bureau of Prisons from a synagogue would work.

“It is these age-old conspiracies that used to be on the fringes that are just slowly making their way into our mainstream thought process,” he said. “These conspiracy theories, these antisemitic conspiracy theories, are nothing new. But it’s a gain of its prevalence in our society is alarming.”

Pasch said ADL trains not only children and adults, but also law enforcement agents on extremism and extremist groups.

“There certainly has been a rise in Ohio, with associations with a variety of groups, whether that is the Proud Boys or the Three Percenters or other militia movements,” Pasch said. “There has certainly been an uptick in recent years.”

In addition, he said membership “is much more loosely affiliated than it used to be because people become radicalized online.”

He said people may be inspired by an extremist message without being an official member.

Pasch said Ohio’s ethnic intimidation law does not currently protect all of the classes that are protected under the federal hate crimes act, specifically, disability, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.

“And this is where we need to advocate for stronger laws,” Pasch said. “Everybody deserves equal protection under the law.”

Pasch also said the incidence of antisemitism on college campuses in Ohio has risen, and that during the COVID-19 pandemic when campuses were nearly empty, antisemitic incidents still occurred.

He called upon leaders to call out hate.

“It is crucial to use your pulpit to denounce hate wherever and whenever you see it,” Pasch said. “There can be no equivocation. And there could certainly be no encouragement. … I can’t stress enough that words matter. People are listening to the words of their elected leaders.”