Anti-Semitism is louder and more salient, but perhaps not 57 percent more frequent

The Anti-Defamation League's statistic that anti-Semitic incidences have increased by 57 percent since Donald Trump became president isn't terribly precise, as it turns out. Tablet Magazine recently investigated the methodology of the ADL's annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents and found a few quirks that should make you question the idea that Trump's America is unsafe for Jews.

The ADL recorded 1,986 perceived acts of anti-Semitism in 2017, which is a 57 percent increase over the year prior. But at least 150 of these incidents came from one person — a "troubled Jewish teenager" from Israel who made baseless bomb threats to multiple American Jewish institutions, causing a massive panic early last year. A second man, a fired reporter for The Intercept (he had invented and falsely attributed quotes) attempting to intimidate his former girlfriend, made at least eight copy-cat threats that he was somehow hoping to pin on her. These two individuals, who probably were not acting out of personal hatred of Jews, account for roughly 24 percent of the total year-over-year increase.

And they might account for even more. Because as Tablet points out, the ADL relies on self-reporting — which is to say, widespread concern over the sudden and truly terrifying rash of threatening calls to Jewish Community Centers and the visibility of the alt-right could have led more Jews to report incidents in which they perceived themselves to be on the receiving end of an anti-Semitic act. One could hardly blame them at the time the bomb threats were in the news.

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