“Guide to Jewish Atlanta” Coming this Summer! 2017 Guide to
JEWISH ATLANTA
CELEBRATING ISRAEL’S INDEPENDENCE, PAGES 16-21 UPLIFTED GOING SOUTH HIT MAN
ORT’s youth villages in Israel develop productive citizens from the periphery. Page 16
Longtime nonprofit leader Jay Tenenbaum is leaving ORT for Florida. Page 20
Ex-New York Yankee Ron Blomberg will speak at JNF’s Hirsch Breakfast. Page 21
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VOL. XCII NO. 17
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ADL: Anti-Semitism Jumps in Southeast Anti-Semitic incidents more than doubled in the Southeast in 2016 compared with 2015, the Anti-Defamation League said Monday, April 24. The ADL’s annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents counted 56 incidents in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee in 2016, a 115 percent increase from the 26 incidents reported in 2015. Thanks in part to the fake bomb threats made against the Marcus Jewish Community Center and JCCs in Birmingham, Nashville and other cities and against several Jewish preschools and day schools in the four-state Southeast Region, the trend has continued in 2017. “We have already seen a doubling of the number of incidents in just the first quarter of 2017 in our region, jumping from 16 incidents to 32,” said Shelley Rose, the interim regional director at ADL’s Buckhead office, which received one of the threats. “It is particularly disturbing to see the number of incidents directed toward Jewish youth. I have received several reports of Holocaust jokes being shared and offensive comments directed at Jewish youth.” Michael Kadar, 18, an Israeli who also holds U.S. citizenship, has been ar-
rested and charged with making the phone calls threatening Jewish institutions among similar hoaxes against secular places and organizations. The trend in the Southeast Region, which tends to have fewer incidents because of a smaller concentration of Jews compared with areas such as Florida and the Northeast, is similar to what ADL is seeing nationally. Harassment of Jews has soared, particularly since November, and anti-Semitic bullying and vandalism at secular schools have doubled.
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ADL reported 1,266 U.S. incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment against Jews and Jewish institutions in 2016, a 34 percent increase from 942 incidents in 2015. Nearly 30 percent of the 2016 incidents (369) occurred in November and December. That surge continued in the first three months of 2017, when preliminary reports found 541 incidents nationwide, an annual pace of more than 2,160 incidents. That’s an 86 percent increase from the 291 incidents of the first quarter of 2016. Without the bomb threats, the first quarter had 380 incidents, still a 31 percent increase. The bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries inspired the creation of the Atlanta Initiative Against Anti-Semitism, which launched with more than 150 groups March 30 and plans its first public meeting at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, May 21, at a location to be announced. To get involved, email VolunteersAIAAS@gmail.com. The good news in the ADL audit is a national decrease in physical assaults, with six in the first quarter of 2017 compared with 10 in the first three months of 2016. All of 2016 saw 36 physical assaults, down 36 percent from 56 in 2015. ■
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APRIL 28, 2017 | 2 IYAR 5777
JCC Threats Just Part Of Indictment
Israel has charged Israeli-American Michael Kadar with making thousands of threatening phone calls to Jewish community centers, schools, airlines, and other Jewish and non-Jewish people and places in a one-man global wave of terror. An extensive eight-part indictment, announced Monday, April 24, and reported by The Times of Israel, portrays the 18-year-old Ashkelon resident as far more vicious and far more involved in criminal activity than previously revealed and sheds light on Israel’s resistance to extraditing Kadar to the United States. Kadar was indicted in Tel Aviv on thousands of counts of extortion, publishing false information to cause a panic, drug dealing, money laundering and possession of child pornography, among many other charges. The Israeli indictment came three days after 31 criminal counts were filed against Kadar in U.S. District Court in Macon and Orlando. The Macon criminal complaint alleges that Kadar targeted schools and a private home in Athens during his phone hoaxes. (See how the Athens connection helped the FBI and others break the case, Page 13.) Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Israel turned down a U.S. extradition request. When Kadar’s March 23 arrest was announced, it was in connection with U.S. and Israeli investigations into the wave of bomb threats to JCCs and other Jewish institutions starting in early January, including two threats to the Marcus JCC and others to at least two Atlantaarea Jewish schools. But authorities have said Kadar kept extensive computer records, including recordings of hoax phone calls, that connected him to wider efforts to cause public panic. ■