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Okay, I've already gotten pushback about this, so let's dig in to some actual statistics, because people either seem to believe that Jews are more in danger than Black/Muslim/LGBT people, or that we aren't seriously in danger, and both of those are wrong.
So, on one hand, in 2016, which is the most recent set of *complete* stats on hate crimes I can find, there were 684 reported hate crimes against Jews and 307 against Muslims. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017…
There were 2,122 reported hate crimes against African-Americans. ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/201… So if you're going to go purely by number of hate-motivated incidents, sure, you can make the argument that Jews are more in danger than Muslims (though not than African-Americans, so).
But going by number of incidents doesn't tell the whole story. For starters, the ratio of number of incidents compared to population size would be another way to look at it. That gets tricky, based on who you define as a Jew.
On the other hand, antisemites usually don't care whether you're a religiously observant Jew or not, so I'm going to use the expanded population estimate including people who affiliate and people of Jewish descent. That's 8-10 million.
So there were about twice as many anti-Jewish hate incidents in 2016 as there were anti-Muslim incidents, but on the other hand, there are about 3x as many Jews as Muslims. So on a hate-crime-per-capita basis, you're more likely to be victimized if you're Muslim.
I'm not even going to try to parse the data on per-capita rates for Black Americans, because I don't understand who they're defining as Black and whether actual Black people agree with their definitions.
The very rough math based on population estimates makes it look like the per-capita rates are roughly equal to those for Jews, but there's a complicating factor I *don't* have data on, which is likelihood of reporting.
I think if you controlled for likelihood of reporting, given that American Jews have generally had a much safer relationship with the police than Black Americans, the per capita rate for Black Americans would be *much* higher.
But there's another factor here, which is *type* of hate incident. The ADL's stats on total hate incidents are much higher than the government's (1266 vs 684), but they at least break down what type of incidents hate against Jews involved.
The ADL says that of 1266 hate incidents directed against Jews in 2016, 36 involved actual assault. That's about 3%. (la.adl.org/adl-audit-anti…)
Pew does a similar breakdown for Muslims: 127 assaults out of 307 hate crimes. That's 41%.
So going purely by numbers, yes, it is true that there were more hate crimes against Jews in 2016 than against Muslims. But you were more likely to be the victim of one if you were Muslim, and it was WAY more likely to be actual physical assault.
So, if you're trying to use these stats to claim Jews are in more danger than Muslims, you're wrong. There have been more incidents, but they've overwhelmingly not involved actual physical violence, whereas for Muslims, close to half of them have.
On the other hand, if you're trying to use these stats to claim that Jews *aren't* in danger, are exaggerating, etc. you're also wrong. There have been two fatal synagogue shootings in 6 months. Synagogues regularly get threats. This is real, and it is dangerous.
More to the point, it's cruel, useless, & ultimately counter-productive to try to argue that any minority group being targeted doesn't have as much of a right as any other to be afraid. It's happening to Jews AND Muslims (AND Black people, AND LGBT people) and it's the same hate.
The point is, any of us headed into a synagogue or mosque or Black church are taking a not insignificant risk just for showing up. At this point, most people in any of those communities know someone directly affected.
I'm blocking anyone who shows up in my mentions waving the Pew report to be like "you're wrong, there were more hate crimes against Jews than any other religious minority!" in an attempt to minimize hate directed at Muslims.
And I'm also blocking anyone who shows up to argue that Jews need to shut up because we're comparatively safe. Because, again, "comparatively safe" is still 2 fatal synagogue shootings in 6 months. That is no one's definition of safe.
It's the same hate. It comes from the same source. Attacks on mosques and Black churches are attacks on synagogues, and vice versa, because they're coming from the same people & ideology.
Like I dunno, this is probably futile because people don't do nuance but ffs, we can recognize that white Jews benefit from white privilege and thus are less likely to be assaulted while walking down the street, AND that that privilege doesn't protect us from synagogue shootings.
And, correspondingly, that we have a responsibility to fight against white supremacy and fight racism and Islamophobia in our own communities AND that we need the help of even more privileged people so we can get together for Torah study without getting shot.
