Nine percent of Jewish Kansas Citians experienced antisemitism, survey shows
Nine percent of Jewish people in Kansas City surveyed in a report by the Jewish Federation of Kansas City experienced antisemitism last year.
The majority of the survey’s respondents — 75% — “are very concerned” about antisemitism in the U.S.
The survey’s results “should alarm all Americans,” AJC CEO David Harris said in a statement following the release of the report.
“Now is the time for American society to stand up and say ‘enough is enough.’ American Jews see antisemitism on the far right and the far left, among extremists acting in the name of Islam, and elsewhere throughout America,” the statement continued. “It is 2021, and a disturbing number of Jews in America are afraid of identifying openly as Jewish for fear of attack.”
In October, a report released by the American Jewish Committee found that nearly 1 in 4 Jews had experienced antisemitism within the previous year.
The results from Kansas City’s survey are based on answers from 989 Jewish households from the greater Kansas City area. It was conducted from April to June 2021.
Of the percentage of adults who said they experienced antisemitic attacks or insults, one was categorized as severe after a neighbor attempted to run over the person and their family with a car. Another 10 incidents were categorized as “moderate,” which involved vandalism or harassment in person or social media. The other 35 incidents were described as “mild,” which meant they involved microaggressions, insults or stereotyping.
The survey’s release comes nearly eight years after F. Glenn Miller Jr., a white supremacist, shot and killed three people at a Jewish community center and a Jewish care center in Overland Park in April 2014. Miller was convicted of capital murder in 2015 and sentenced to death. He died of natural causes in May 2021 at age 80.
During the trial, Miller represented himself and argued the shootings were justified because he was trying to stop “the Jewish genocide against the white race.” None of the victims were Jewish.
