Anti-Jewish acts on rise in Colorado, report finds
John C. Ensslin
Published March 6, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.
Anti-Jewish incidents increased in Colorado in 2007 for the first time in three years, according to a report released Wednesday that ranks Colorado eighth in the nation for anti-Semitic activity.
The trend runs contrary to a national trend that saw a decline in such activity in 2007 and to hate crime statistics for Colorado, which saw no significant increase between 2005 to 2006.
The anti-Jewish activity is documented in the Anti-Defamation League's annual audit, which tracks anti-Semitic incidents in 40 states plus the District of Columbia.
That report cites 30 incidents that were reported in Colorado in 2007, compared with 22 in 2006.
Nationwide, the ADL report found 1,357 incidents in 2007, compared to 1,554 in 2006, a decrease of nearly 13 percent.
Bruce DeBoskey, ADL's regional director, said it is difficult to pinpoint a reason for the statewide trend.
"It concerns us," DeBoskey said. "But Colorado has always been disproportionately higher in the ranking of anti-Semitic incidents for a state our size."
"There is an active white supremacist movement in our state that we monitor. And there is an element of our state that is focused on bigotry."
New York topped the list, with 351 incidents, continuing a trend of the last several years. Other states with the most activity included New Jersey, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Colorado had ranked ninth in 2006.
In Colorado, the 30 incidents included:
* A threat to bomb a public high school during its Holocaust remembrance program.
* A Jewish college student whose roommate called her a "dirty Jew" and said she wanted to "kill all Jews."
* A swastika marked on the front door of a Jewish family's home.
In all, 16 acts of harassment were reported in Colorado, 12 acts of vandalism and two acts of harassment and vandalism.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation tracks hate crimes of all kinds in Colorado. The number of offenses spiked sharply from 63 in 2004 to 152 in 2005. But in 2006, that number leveled off to 147.
Statistics from the bureau for 2007 were not available.
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March 6, 2008
9:53 a.m.
Suggest removal
blacksho89 writes:
I blame the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center in Boulder. They are the largest anti-Israel group in Colorado. The hate and lies they spew are unbelievable.
March 30, 2008
6:15 p.m.
Suggest removal
stevenj writes:
I believe the cause of these antisemitic incidents is the result of two very different reasons. One is the deliberate withholding of information concerning the Columbine shooting. Ignoring key witnesses who said there were other shooters involved, protecting the psychologist who was providing psychotropic meds to the shooters, etc. Secondly, there has been a heavy influx of Mexicans into the community. In there home country poverty and corruption is rampant. The elites who control and exploit the people are what they call in Mexico "Morano Jews". Mexicans predominately practice Catholicism, which has over the ages has had a poor relationship with Jews.