Anti-Semitism ‘map’ discussed as way to aid law enforcement

A map that treats anti-Semitism as a virus could pave the way to preventing violent attacks against Jewish Americans, a leading policy adviser says.

The Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice discussed a map to epidemiologically track hateful rhetoric or ideas that might lead to violence. The discussion came after longtime public policy consultant Jeff Ballabon touted the idea in a Thursday teleconference about faith-based initiatives.

“The transmission of anti-semitism bear astonishing resemblance to disease,” said Mr. Ballabon, CEO of B2 Strategic, a Washington public policy firm. “It passes from person to person within a community or across communities. There are silent, asymptomatic spreaders, and co-infections, and there are nodes of infection which move across borders and oceans literally in fractions of a second thanks to social media.”

Katharine Sullivan, the principal deputy assistant attorney general, and vice chairwoman of the commission, pressed Mr. Ballabon on whether such a map would be filled with bias.

“What one community sees as a hate crime another community does not. How can that be overlaid across the country?” Ms. Sullivan asked.

Mr. Ballabon acknowledged the slippery slope to defining “hate” and seeing such definitions weaponized against religious minorities — particularly, he said, among Orthodox Jews. But he pointed to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism as a standard approved by both the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as the United Nations and Israel.

“If we were to undertake an epidemiology study of anti-Semitism we could test out where it exists,” he said. Armed with such knowledge, he said, police could deploy resources “preventatively and preemptively” rather than solely dealing with anti-Semitism through punishment and the courts.

Violent hate crimes reached a 16-year high in 2018, according to the FBI. Attacks against Jews reached a record high in 2019, according to a report last month from the Anti-Defamation League.

Thursday’s teleconference also touched on what faiths, particularly minority faiths, can do to collaborate with law enforcement. But the framing of the issue drew criticism from Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance in Washington

“But I have to say that it bothers me as a Jew that there is some notion that the Muslim community or any other faith community in this country needs to justify itself as loyal and cooperative Americans,” he said. “I think that needs to be the presumed, default position of law enforcement — that we’re dealing with the pluribus that makes us unum.”

The teleconference also heard from Imam Talib M. Shareef, president of Masjid Muhammed, The Nation’s Mosque, who talked about policing initiatives he has undertaken to counter messages of hate within some Islamic religious communities across the U.S. But he says his community still feels suspicion from law enforcement.

“It’s a strong mindset out there in terms of ’us’ against ’them’ in terms of the way it’s been,” said Imam Shareef, who called for six months of culturally sensitive de-escalation training. “Offices who’ve been flagged with violating human rights have got to be dealt with immediately.”

Other religious minorities have seen spikes, too.

Just this week, civil rights groups called for hate crime charges against a Colorado man who in April brutally attacked a Sikh-American store owner and told the man — who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years — to return to his home country.

Law enforcement says the Sikh man was mistaken for being of Middle Eastern ethnicity.