Desert Community Event Addresses Post-Charlottesville Hate in America

  • December 1, 2017

ADL presented a program, After Charlottesville: What’s Next?, co-sponsored by Jewish Federation of the Desert on November 28, 2017 at the Jewish Federation office in Rancho Mirage.

ADL Senior Investigative Researcher and Director of Special Projects Joanna Mendelson laid out the big picture of hate groups and trends both pre- and post-Charlottesville.  In addition to providing background on white supremacist ideology, she shared that over the past 10 years (2007-2016), domestic extremists of all kinds have killed at least 372 people in the United States. Of those deaths, approximately 74% were at the hands of right-wing extremists such as white supremacists, sovereign citizens, and militia adherents.

She also discussed ADL’s recent audit of anti-Semitic incidents that showed a 67% increase in anti-Semitic incidents so far this year over last year. According to Mendelson, anti-Semitism and bigotry, promoted by white supremacists, has boldly emerged in the public square, on the airwaves and on the Internet.

The presentation was made possible through the generosity of the Helene and Melvin Berman Lecture Series, and provided the opportunity to highlight ADL’s work in the Desert and Inland Empire as well as continue to strengthen our partnership with the Jewish Federation of the Desert.  For more information about ADL’s work in the Desert, please contact LA@adl.org.