A blimp reading “Jews Rape Kids” was attempting to fly in the harbor of San Francisco over the weekend. The stunt was led by a neo-Nazi named Patrick Little who was recently in Washington, D.C. supporting Jason Kessler’s second Unite the Right rally. Little, a former marine, espouses typical white nationalist claims that European heritage is under assault and white people are careening towards “extinction”. On his website, he claims, “I came to realize that the majority of the problems that Americans face today are the result of subversion and tyranny by a powerful group of people from the Jewish race.”
Little attempted to fly the small blimp over the harbor while the San Francisco Giants were celebrating Jewish Heritage Night. The blimp, known as the Jew-Namer 800, failed to take flight as strong wind and poor weather conditions scuttled the Nazi’s attempt. “Even though a harsh Russian Winter stymied Germany on the Eastern Front, still those who fought for freedom soldiered-on,” wrote Little on the blimp’s failed flight attempt.
Anti-Semitism is currently at a five-year high in the U.S. Releasing statistics on hate crimes last November, the FBI data showed that anti-Semitic crimes are the main target of religiously-motivated crimes. Tablet Magazine, a Jewish publication, said this of the FBI report: “Despite constituting just two percent of the American population, Jews were subject to 54.4 percent of such attacks.” In their most recent report, the Anti-Defamation League found that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. rose 57 percent in 2017 – the largest single-year increase on record and the second highest number reported since ADL started tracking such data in 1979, citing the majority of incidents are on college campuses and schools.
There is also a rack of candidates running on GOP tickets this mid-term who are open Holocaust deniers, and, in one instance, an actual Nazi. While the circumstances surrounding the rise in anti-Semitism can be debated, most Jewish communities will point to the ongoing political climate and the use of racially and religiously motivated dog-whistles as the primary motivator.
