The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

As with attacks upon African-Americans, hate crimes against Jews draw upon centuries of such assaults, from the pogroms of Eastern Europe to the Nazi Holocaust to the cross-burnings of the Ku Klux Klan in this country. Hate crimes against Jews in the United States range from physical assaults upon individuals to desecrations of synagogues and cemeteries and the painting of swastikas on private homes. As with hateful acts upon other minorities, the pain is increased by arousing feelings of vulnerability and memories of persecution, even extermination, in other countries and in other times.

Hatred against Jews is fed by slanders and stereotypes that have their origins in Europe extending back for centuries. These range far beyond the view that Jews were "Christ-killers" and include conspiracy theories involving "international bankers," the State of Israel, and groups ranging from communists to freemasons. Such views are spread by groups on the political right as well as on the left who find little basis for agreement except for their anti-Semitism. As in the past, these extremists have tried to exploit the hardships of Americans from unemployed industrial workers to hard pressed farmers. Similarly, extremists associated with some black nationalist groups have promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories within the black community, exploiting the pain of poverty and discrimination and exacerbating tensions between African-Americans and Jews.

In a private survey of anti-semitic incidents [it is important to note that this survey includes hateful speech as well as hate crimes] reported to the ADL in 1995, the group found 1,843 acts against property or persons. This included 1,116 incidents of harassment and 727 incidents of vandalism.³⁷ crimes against Jews include:

• On July 16, 1995, in Cincinnati, a group of youths assaulted the son of a community rabbi, chasing him for about a block before they caught him outside the synagogue and beat him until he collapsed on the street. The next day, the group assaulted a 58-year-old recent immigrant from Russia in his own driveway. A group of five young men, aged 15 to 18, was arrested and convicted for the assaults. At the sentencing, the judge asked one of the young men, Brian Scherrer, why he had committed the crimes. He explained the attacks were part of a gang initiation and that one victim was chosen because "He was Jewish."³⁸

• On August 19, 1991, a traffic accident in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (a community with a long history of racial and religious animosity among African-Americans, Hasidic Jews, and Caribbean Nationals) resulted in the tragic death of seven- year old African-American Gavin Cato and injury to his cousin, Angela. The driver of the car was part of Grand Rebbe Menachem M. Schneerson's motorcade. The Grand Rebbe was a religious leader of Lubavitch Hasidic Jews. A riot followed over three days during which crowds roamed the streets yelling "Get the Jews" and "Heil Hitler." Jewish-owned homes, cars and other property were attacked. Yankel Rosenbaum, an Australian scholar, was stopped by a gang of twenty youngsters who yelled "Get the Jew." Rosenbaum was assaulted, held down, stabbed, and left bleeding on a car hood. He died.³⁹

• In Phoenix, Arizona, crime of vandalism erupted. A Maltese Cross, SS lightning bolts, "Dirty Jews go to Auschwitz," "Sieg Heil," and a swastika were spray painted on the Temple Beth El Congregation.⁴⁰

• Freddy's Fashion Mart was a Jewish-owned store in Harlem, New York, that rented space from a black church and sublet some of that space to a black-owned record store. The land lord and owner of Freddy's wanted the Fashion Mart to expand. The owner of the record store didn't want to move and a protest of Freddy's was begun. Some people on the picket line, and their supporters, regularly engaged in anti-Semitic rhetoric. On December 8, 1995, Roland Smith, one of the protesters, entered the store with a gun and lighter fluid. He doused the store and set it on fire. Eight people -including Smith - died. Although none were Jewish, anti-semitism strife was an underlying factor.⁴¹

Attacks upon Hispanics:

Of 814 hate crimes in 1995 that were motivated by bias based on ethnicity or national origin, 63.3% - 516 in all - were directed against Hispanics.

In California and throughout the Southwest, long-existing antagonisms against Hispanics have been aggravated by the furor over immigration. With job opportunities declining at a time of defense cutbacks and economic recession, there have been renewed calls for restrictions against legal immigration and harsh measures against undocumented immigrants. In November, 1994, 59% of California voters approved a statewide referendum proposal, Proposition 187, which declares undocumented immigrants ineligible for most public services, including public education and non-emergency health care.

As with attacks upon African-Americans and Jews, attacks upon Hispanics are part of a history of hatred. In California and throughout the Southwest, there have been recurring periods of "nativism," when not only newcomers but longtime U.S. citizens of Mexican descent have been blamed for social and economic problems. During the Depression of the 1930's, citizens and non-citizens of Mexican descent were the targets of mass deportations, with a half million "dumped" across the border in Mexico. In the early 1950's, a paramilitary effort, with the degrading name "Operation Wetback," deported tens of thousands of Mexicans from California and several other southwestern states. The historian Juan Ramon Garcia describes the climate of fear and hatred that existed from the 1930's through the '50s:

"The image of the mysterious, sneaky, faceless "illegal" was once again stamped into the minds of many. Once this was accomplished, "illegals" became something less than human, with their arbitrary removal being that much easier to justify and accomplish.""I have no intention of being the object of "conquest," peaceful or otherwise, by Latinos, Asians, Blacks, Arabs, or any other group of individuals who have claimed my country." And Glenn Spencer, president of Voices of Citizens Together, which collected 40,000 signatures to qualify Proposition 187 for the ballot, said: "We have to take direct and immediate action to preserve this culture and this nation we have spent two centuries building up."

During the emotionally charged debate over Proposition 187, hate speech and violent acts against Latinos increased dramatically. And, in the aftermath of the approval of 187, civil rights violations against Latinos went on the upswing, with most of the cases involving United States citizens or permanent legal residents. All in all, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area alone, the County Human Relations Commission documented an 11.9% increase in hate crimes against Latinos in 1994.⁴²

For example:

• On November 12, 1994, Graziella Fuentes (54) was taking her daily one mile walk through the suburban San Fernando Valley, when eight young males 14 to 17 years old shouted at her that now that Proposition 187 has passed, she should go back to Mexico. After calling her "wetback" and other names, they threw rocks at her hitting her on the head and back.⁴³

  Bigotry and hate crimes against Hispanics are not confined to California and the Southwest. From the Midwest, to the Northeast, to Florida, Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, and immigrants from other countries in Central and South America have been the targets of harassment and violence.

  Here are several examples of hate crimes against Hispanics over the years:

  • In the summer of 1995, Allen Adams and Tad Page were sentenced to 88 and 70 months, respectively, for their roles in the ethnically motivated shooting of four Latinos in Livermore, Maine. Three of the shooting victims were migrant laborers working in an egg farm, while the fourth was visiting his ailing mother, a migrant worker. The incident began at a store, where the victims were trying to make a purchase. Adams and Page, who were also at the store, taunted the victims with ethnic epithets, telling them: "Go back to Mexico or [we'll] send you there in a bodybag." After the victims drove away from the store, Adams and Page chased them by car, firing 11 rounds from a nine millimeter handgun at the victims' automobile. One victim was shot in the arm, while another bullet hit the driver's headrest, just a few centimeters from the driver.⁴⁴

  • On June 11, 1995, arsonists burned down the home of a Latino family in the Antelope Valley, California, city of Palmdale. They spray-painted these messages on the walls: "White [sic] power" and "your family dies."⁴⁵

  • A Hispanic man at a camp for homeless migrant workers in Alpine, Calif., was beaten with baseball bats by six white men in October, 1992. The assailants later reportedly bragged about "kicking Mexican ass."⁴⁶

  While not the focus of this report there have been well publicized reports of severe police beatings of Hispanics suspected of being undocumented immigrants.

  • In April 1996, two Riverside County, California sheriff's deputies were videotaped beating two suspected undocumented Mexican immigrants. The man and woman were continuously struck with batons and the woman was pulled to the ground by her hair.⁴⁷

    Bobbi Murray, an official with the Coalition for Human immigrants' Rights of Los Angeles said in response to the beating: "We were really sickened when we saw it. But we're not inordinately surprised because we've been concerned for a long time that this inflamed election year rhetoric of bashing immigrants and singling them out as an enemy creates an atmosphere that gives license to this sort of stuff."⁴⁸

    Hispanic rights organizations charge that Hispanic-Americans are often targets of a growing trend of abuse by private citizens and local law enforcement officials. They attribute the increasing abuse in part to the hostile political climate in which anyone who is perceived as an immigrant becomes a target for "enforcement" activities that are excessive, inappropriate, and often illegal.