A Dark History Chronicled: Anti-Semitism In The U.S.

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The Anti-Defamation League called the attack that killed 11 people Saturday morning at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh probably “the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States.” These are some major anti-Semitic attacks that have taken place in the United States since the early 20th century.

1915 — Leo Frank, a factory superintendent in Atlanta who was convicted of the murder of a 13-year-old girl, is kidnapped from prison and lynched in Marietta by a group of prominent citizens who objected to the state’s governor’s commutation of Frank’s life prison sentence.

1958 — A firebomb planted by white supremacists extensively damages The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple in Atlanta (better known as The Temple), whose rabbi is an outspoken opponent of segregation.

1977 — Hanafi Muslims take over the B’nai Brith national office building in Washington during a 40-hour hostage standoff.

1977 — One man is killed and one injured when a white supremacist shoots worshippers at a bar mitzvah at Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel Congregation in Richmond Heights, Mo.

1984 — A neo-Nazi group firebombs the Ahavath Israel synagogue in Boise, Idaho.

1990 — JDL founder Rabbi Meir Kahane is assassinated in Manhattan by El-Sayyid Nosair, an Egyptian-born U.S. citizen.

1991 – Black residents of Crown Heights riot against the neighborhood’s Chasidic residents after two children of Guyanese immigrants are accidentally struck by a car in the motorcade of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

1994 — Rashid Baz, a convert to radical Islamism, opens fire on a van of Lubavitch rabbinical students on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing one person and injuring two.

1999 — A member of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group carries out a shooting attack at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Grenada Hills, Calif.

2000 — Two Palestinian American men set fire to Temple Beth El in Syracuse, N.Y.

2002 — Hisham Muhammad Ali Hedayet, a native of Egypt, kills two people during a shooting spree at the El Al counter at LAX airport in Los Angeles.

2006 — A radicalized Muslim with a history of psychological issues kills one person and wounds five others in a shooting attack at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

2009 – A white supremacist kills a security guard in a shooting attack at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

2014 – A neo-Nazi kills three people in a shooting attack at the JCC and Jewish retirement facility in Overland Park, Kan.

2018 – Eleven people are killed in a shooting spree during Shabbat morning at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.

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