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Pittsburgh-area law enforcement, college officials unite to combat antisemitism

Stakeholders discuss how to combat antisemitism in Pittsburgh area
Stakeholders discuss how to combat antisemitism in Pittsburgh area 02:13

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With a drastic rise in antisemitism across the U.S. and in the Pittsburgh area, local law enforcement and representatives from colleges gathered in Hazelwood on Tuesday to have a conversation to combat the problem.

Dozens of local stakeholders came together to fight the hate in our community, specifically to better understand and identify antisemitism.

They were taught by Carly Gammill, the founding director of the StandWithUs Center for Combating Antisemitism, an international, nonpartisan organization dedicated to combating antisemitism through education, who came to Hazelwood for training in partnership with the Allegheny County District Attorney's Office.

"One of the reasons that this is so important is because there is real harm being done to real human beings, and I think that often gets missed," Gammill said. "In society, as a whole, we generally have progressed to a point where being a bigot of any kind is disfavored, it's frowned upon, and yet, too often, antisemitism gets a pass and for reasons that sometimes are not necessarily intentional."

According to the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, right after the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the Pittsburgh area saw a 30% increase in antisemitic incidents, and the momentum has continued consistently at an elevated pace.

Most recently, last fall there were three concerning incidents involving Jewish students on and around local campuses like Pitt. There were also multiple antisemitic graffiti cases defacing religious institutions and along the riverwalk near Point State Park.

It's why Deputy DA Ilan Zur said they wanted to bring Gammill in for a seminar.

"I think there's a lot of ignorance revolving around that, and people don't really fully understand what that means to be antisemitic," Zur said.

Gammill said these roadblocks are causing conflicts. She hopes folks can acknowledge this and work to try to understand.

"To combat antisemitism, we have to be able to identify it, and so for individuals to take that first step of educating themselves and then take that information back to their spheres of influence, I think is crucial at this time," Gammill said.

This comes a month after Pitt announced the creation of a working group to analyze and address the state of antisemitism on campus and in the Pittsburgh area.

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