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CSUSB professor interviewed about hate messages publicly posted at a Calabasas home
Los Angeles Times
Jan. 15, 2020
Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, was quoted in an article about a Calabasas neighborhood that has taken offense at a series of foul, hate-filled messages plastered to the balcony of a condominium unit, at least one of which specifically targeted President Trump, and authorities say they are investigating.
The incident has struck a nerve in the community, which has a large Jewish population.
“In the past decade, in hate crimes overall, the two worst months nationally were November 2016 and October 2018,” said Levin. “Both were national elections, so we’re very concerned about international tensions.”
Levin also credits the normalization of Nazi symbols and “coarse” social media as factors progressively increasing the number of hate crimes. Last year was the worst for hate crimes overall in the three largest U.S. cities — New York, L.A. and Chicago — since 2001, he added.
“We have [the] mainstreaming of anti-Semitism,” Levin said, and “when society becomes polarized and fragmented and trust in communal institutions declines, the kind of universal recipient of that hate — or at least the first exit on that freeway — is anti-Semitism.”
Read the complete article at “Swastikas, hate messages plastered on Calabasas balcony.”
KTLA TV, a media partner of the Los Angeles Times, included Levin’s comments in its coverage (picked up by other online news sites), though not in its video report: “Man posts swastika, hateful language on condo, yells at reporters to ‘Call the White House.’”
Exhibit on Holocaust goes on display in New York just as CSUSB center shows increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes
Reuters
Jan. 15, 2020
New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage will host the exhibit, “Rendering Witness: Holocaust-Era Art as Testimony,” Jan. 16 through July 5. The show opens amid a spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes across the United States and particularly in New York City, home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York in 2019 were at a 28-year high, according to professor Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
Read the complete article at “Eyewitness to horror: New York museum opens exhibit of art by Holocaust victims.”
These news clips and others may be found at “In the Headlines” at inside.csusb.edu.