>> here in the cnn newsroom we are all rooting for easton's recovery, thinking about him. praying for him. that's it for me. thank you so much for joining me this evening. i'm phil mattingly. the cnn special report, "rising hate: anti-semitism in america" starts rigight now. >> announcer: the follllowing ia cnn special report. xxxx . >> anti-semitism, the oldest hate. ugly, deadly, and on the rise in america. >> in chicago, two synagogues vandalized. >> shooters targeting this jersey city kosher supermarket. >> three victims are shot and killed at two different jewish facilities near kansas city.

>> jews are the most targeted religious group in america, says the fbi. >> all i say is, never again, but guess what? it is again and again and again. >> the threat level against the jewish community is historic. >> hate once limited to extremists, fanatics. >> jews will not replace us! >> now main stream. >> this is a plague. >> there is no question that anti-semitism is being normalized. >> on city streets, online. >> we've seen people live stream their actual attacks. >> this is disgusting. >> on college campuses, in politics. >> it's become a political prop for people on both the right and the left. >> how did we get here and how do we stop it? >> they need to be disrupted

today. >> whenever challenged with darkness and evil we will fight back with light. >> this is a cnn special report. "rising hate: anti-semitism in america." january 15th, 2022, was a bitter cold day in colleyville, texas. >> it was in the 30s in texas. doesn't usually get that cold. >> so when a visitor knocked on the door of congregation beth israel, rabbi charlie citron walker didn't think twice about welcoming him in. >> when i opened the door to just offer a word he asked if we had a night shelter. so i let him in. i got him some tea. >> reporter: rabbi citron walker began the sabbath service on zoom with three congregants

there in person. >> my back was turned to the congregation. i thought i heard the click of a gun. i went to the back of the room and that's when he pulled the gun on me. >> and within a few seconds, he got up and started yelling. i've got a bomb. >> reporter: he became to pray and became a hostage. >> my phone was sitting next to me and i quickly dialed 911. >> >> reporter: people watching the live stream could hear the gunman. >> i'm going to die. all right? >> people need there to be one individual that is holding people hostage inside beth israel congregation. >> reporter: the hostage stand-off lasted for nearly 11 hours. while fbi special agent in charge matthew desarnos' team negotiated with the gunman. >> he was negotiating the

release of a convicted al qaeda terrorist who was housed nearby. >> he believed coming in here and attacking jews that the jews controlled everything so they would make it happen. jews controlled the government, the banks, the media. he truly believed this. >> it is a prejudice that is rooted in a conspiracy theory. >> reporter: debra lipstadt is widely considered one of the world's foremost experts on anti-semitism. >> anti-semitism has the strange title of the oldest or the longest hatred. hating jews is very convenient. >> why? >> you need someone to blame if there is a plague in your town. you need someone to blame if the economy goes bad. you need someone to blame if the war is lost. >> reporter: jeff coen worried the conspiracy theories might end his life and was able to use his phone to post a message on facebook. >> at cbi, there is a gunman here. he says he has a bomb.

remember me. stop hate. a little painful to remember. a little painful to remember. >> reporter: around 8:00 that night the negotiations deteriorated and the gunman grew agitated. >> do something. okay? >> his demeanor changed. it was much more demanding, with deadlines, ultimatums. that's when i authorized our hostage rescue team to execute a deliberate hostage rescue. >> reporter: and at the exact same moment -- >> for the first time all day he didn't have his hand on the trigger. so i told the guys to run. >> we ran and we went through that door as fast as we could. >> reporter: and what you're seeing is that escape. the colleyville crisis was just one in an alarming rise of anti-semitic attacks across the

united states. >> the threat is serious. >> reporter: you're the deputy director of the fbi. the fact you thought it was important enough to sit down to talk about anti-semitism in america, what does that say about the threat? >> the threat level against the jewish community is historic. and over the last few years it's been on the rise. >> reporter: are biasses toward jews higher than toward people of other religions? >> no doubt about that. >> reporter: over the past five years fbi data shows jews have been the victims of hate crimes more often than any other religion. >> in 2021 we tracked the highest number of incidents we've ever seen. >> reporter: this man is the ceo of the antidefamation league which has been tracking anti-semitic incidents for more than 40 years. >> it is bad in a way we haven't seen since arguably the 1930s. there is no question anti-semitism is being normalized and has become a political prop for people on

both the right and the left. >> irrespective of where it is coming from, people rely on the same template of charges, whether it is covid-19, whether it's climate change, whatever it might be, the jews are behind it. it would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. >> reporter: why is there this spike right now? >> there's been a rise in divisiveness in this country generally. we're a very convenient scapegoat. >> all my parents wanted to do is protect my sister and i. >> reporter: this holocaust survivor ruth steinfeld knows this all too well. >> the holocaust started with words. yelling, screaming, how they have to get rid of us. and on september 9th, 1942, both my parents were put to death in

auschwitz. >> reporter: she was just 13 years old when she and her family were sent to a nazi concentration camp. her mother made the heart wrenching decision to let a french organization take her and her sister to safety. >> the last time i saw my mom is when she insisted that we get on that bus. i didn't want to get on the bus. i wanted to stay with her. i have this picture of watching mama waving good-bye to me from the street when i'm waving and crying. >> reporter: steinfeld lives just a few hours from colleyville. you experienced the kind of hate that no one should. and lost your parents because of it. but you're a proud american. do you see some of that hate bubbling up here? >> absolutely. but first it was just once in a

while. now it seems to be in the air, all over. all i say is, never again. but guess what? it is again and again and again. >> reporter: melania trump has a half brother apparently she did not know about. coming up -- >> i heard the article was nasty. some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman with anti-semitic attacks, death threats. >> reporter: one of the reasons for the rise in anti-semitism. >> jews will not replace u [ chanting ]

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>> melania, so great. >> reporter: as donald trump quickly catapulted from long shot to front-runner in 2016 -- >> it was a great moment. okay? >> reporter: the spotlight shined on his wife. would be first lady, melania trump. >> good evening. isn't he the best? >> at the time nobody really knew who she was. >> reporter: this journalist was assigned an article on melania trump and traveled to her native slovenia. >> somebody approached my fixer and me and said, you know she has an illegitimate half brother she doesn't know about. we went to the archives. we found the custody and the child support proceedings.

it all checked out. >> reporter: the article posted on april 27th, 2016. within 24 hours, melania trump reacted on facebook, accusing yafi of having an agenda. >> the problem is when your husband runs for president everything is fair game. when she says it was a hit job, it wasn't a hit job. this is just the family. >> reporter: seen after a neo-nazi website posted this. filthy russian kike julia loffy attacks empress melania. then go ahead and send loffy a tweet >> i started getting all these calls and stuff on social media and my e-mail and photo shops of my face in gas chamber or in an auschwitz mug shot. so many of these people were making overt connections between these anti-semitic actions and speech and their support for donald trump.

>> anti-semitism is often actually used as a tool to silence people. these anti-semites -- >> orrin siegal runs the antidefamation league's center on extremism. >> there is a troll army created and you harass somebody until they say uncle. >> reporter: but ioffe would not cry uncle. >> the people feel very brave sitting behind their key boards. >> reporter: she was motivated by her family who fled anti-semitism in the soviet union when she was young. >> i owed it both to my parents and to my ancestors to not be quiet about it. >> some of your supporters have viciously attacked this woman julia ioffe with anti-semitic attacks, death threat. >> reporter: soon after the attacks wolf blitzer interviewed the republican nominee. >> i don't know anything about that. >> supposed fans of yours posting these. >> reporter: when pressed again, this. >> your message to these fans

is? >> i don't have a message to the fans. there is nothing more dishonest than the media. soi >> reporter: so his silence was taken how? >> as permission. >> reporter: this is a professor who compiles data about online hate. you actually saw data that backed that up. >> yes. >> yes. we would see the number of attacking tweets on jewish journalists spike. it was the largest spike we saw in our data set. people took that as a green light. >> i've seen press that always tries to say donald trump's silence or his kind of words used is an instruction to do something bad. i don't buy it. >> reporter: jason greenblatt has been one of donald trump's lawyers for decades. >> i have had many, many friends over the years. i thought maybe i could get jason greenblatt down here >> i worked for him for 23 years and i saw time and time again

how he wasn't anti-semitic. >> reporter: he points to trump's actions on israel, moving the embassy to jerusalem and spearheading the abraham accords. >> israel is a sovereign nation. >> reporter: what about trump's refusal to condemn anti-semitic attacks on julia ioffe? >> and i heard the article was nasty. >> i can't explain it. >> reporter: did you feel a special responsibility to go to him when you saw those things happening? >> i did. >> reporter: can you give me an example? >> the david duke thing during the campaign. >> will you condemn david duke and say you don't want his vote or that of other white supremacists in this election? >> well, just so you understand, i don't know anything about david duke. okay? >> i saw what was happening i guess as a result of jake's interview and i said this is what's happening. here is what david duke actually said. do you stand for this? he said absolutely not. so he dictated a condemnation. >> reporter: why do you think he didn't get it in the moment? >> not everybody knows david duke as silly as that sounds but

maybe he didn't understand what was being asked of him. very hard to say. >> the reason why his statement still hit people so hard, it is because pulling that out of him required so much effort. donald trump is complicated. he has a jewish daughter and son-in-law. he has jewish grandchildren. there has never been a president in the history of the republic as personally close to the jewish people as donald trump. and things like the abraham accords, these were really important. and yet at the same time when asked to call out white supremacists -- >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> when he stood there days after charlottesville and said -- >> but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. >> the neo-nazis knew exactly what he meant. his attitude, his language. the choices that he made ushered

in this hate. >> excuse me. i saw the same pictures as you did. >> reporter: so jason greenblatt argues if you read all of the remarks in that charlottesville press conference he did condemn the neo-nazis and the white supremacists. >> i'm not talking about the neo-nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally. >> if donald trump convincingly, consistently, clearly called out the extremists and the anti-semites it wouldn't even matter what he said in that moment. >> reporter: the statistics speak volumes. from 2001 until 2015, anti-semitic incidents in the u.s. were declining. then in 2016, a 30% spike. in 2017, a 57% increase. the largest since the adl began tracking this. that summer, the charlottesville riot. >> jews will not replace us.

[ chanting ] >> donald trump didn't invent anti-semitism. the thing that made his presidency so frightening in this respect is how he normalized prejudice. >> kung flu. >> it builds environments where prejudice is permissible. >> reporter: one of those environments, the internet. >> this is it. >> reporter: that part of the story when we come back. with leading ultra-capacity 5g coverage. t-mobile for business has 5g that's ready right now. can a cream really reduce wrinkles? more than one hundred women tried l'oreal triple power. my smile lines and the wrinkles have diminished. triple power visibly reduces wrinkles, firms and brightens. i saw results in 1 week. it absolutely works. revitalift triplepower from l'oreal paris. it does what it says. among my patients, i often see them have teeth sensitivity as well as gum issues. does it worry me? absolutely. sensodyne sensitivity & gum gives us the dual action effect

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♪ >> incredible. it's hard to believe someone like that who plays so beautifully, plays music that makes people feel good, can be so evil. >> yes. he was truly gifted. but rather than giving a gift, he kind of gave a curse. >> breaking news just in to cnn the sheriff's office in san diego county has confirmed one man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at a synagogue. >> we were just beginning the fifth reading of the torah portion. it was interrupted by a series

of gunshots. >> jonathan morales was praying in the back row in poway, southern california the last night of passover, april, 2019. how close were you to the bullets coming into this sanctuary? >> less than 10 feet away from bullets and shrapnel. >> reporter: morales, a border patrol agent, crawled on the floor to grab a gun he knew the rabbi had hidden in case of emergency. he chased the gunman out of the synagogue, firing at him as he ran to his car to escape. >> he ducked under the steering wheel. and that's when he pressed his foot on the gas pedal and took off. >> reporter: the scene was gruesome. one congregant was dead and three others including an 8-year-old girl injured. minutes after he fled that scene, the gunman called 911 himself >> i opened fire at a synagogue.

i think i killed some people. >> he wanted essentially to be caught. >> reporter: why? >> i think he wanted a forum. >> reporter: a forum for his anti-semitic rage says the deputy district attorney. in a hate-filled, rambling manifesto he wrote that jews, quote, deserve nothing but hell and he wanted to be the one to, quote, send them there. >> at no time did he ever express any regret for what he did. in fact, in jail one of the deputies found one of his slippers and on the sole of where your heel would be in pencil was a star of david on his heel. >> reporter: he put a star of david on the sole of his shoe so he could step on it. >> yes. >> reporter: the 19-year-old was radicalized online. >> we had hundreds of images he had down loaded from the internet. anything from anti-semitism to celebration of the nazis, hitler. >> reporter: what do you think pushed him over the edge?

>> the christ church shooting. >> police in the city of christchurch responding. >> reporter: to an active shooter at a new zealand mosque live streaming his killing spree and posting his manifesto online. >> it provided the blueprint of how to do it again. this is not outside of the box anymore. this is standard operating procedure for anti-semites and extremists. >> their recruiting is sophisticated. >> reporter: recruitment into the world of hate is something he understands well. >> this is ultimately where i was recruited into gangs. >> reporter: right here. >> right here. >> reporter: it was the 1980s. patton was a run away homeless on the streets of los angeles. >> how the skinheads approached me was really with a business card. a business card is reserved for people who are successful and in business. >> reporter: so you thought they're skuks cessful. i want to be like that. >> exactly. that is how it all started. it had nothing to do with ideology in the beginning.

it had everything to do with wanting to be like them and wanting out of my bad situation. >> reporter: he came from a broken home. a single mom. she was jewish. >> the part that probably resonated with me in their message was i was angry. and so anti-semitism was really saying, i was antimy family. >> reporter: patton became a skinhead. the movement which erupted across the u.s. in the 1980s with violent attacks and murders often targeting jews. he rose in the ranks. he said these days it is easier than ever to lure people in. >> these white supremacists are sitting home today looking for the vulnerable online. you can be on a thousand street corners at once now and that is the big difference. >> reporter: and there is no escaping it. a recent study showed there was anti-semitism on every social platform. >> part of what they're trying to do to attract people to their hate is to use almost stylistic

type of imagery and memes. and so here, hey. look, everybody. it's the midnight jew crew making hate crimes great again. basically blaming jews for falsely creating anti-semitic incidents to get sympathies essentially. >> reporter: a new tactic, live streaming confrontation like here when a white supremacist goes after a jewish man. >> many of these viewers are engaging in real time. >> reporter: watch the jews squirm. f the jews. >> exactly. they are actually in many cases telling the folks on the ground what they should do. if you notice there is a donate button. so the more he curses out a bystander the more money will be given. this is again why it is so concerning. we've seen people live stream their actual attacks, their shootings because they anticipate people will watch

them. go on the journey with them. >> like the poway shooter did. the community there is still trying to heal. >> there is a reminder and a memory of what happened. >> reporter: to never, never forget. >> yes. >> reporter: which is why the current rabbi invited us in. the first television media allowed inside the sanctuary since the deadly shooting. >> judaism teaches us that we will continue growing. that whenever challenged with darkness and evil we will fight back with light and kindness and goodness. >> reporter: which is not easy during a deadly pandemic when haters are looking for someone to blame. that when we come back. and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. life... doesn't stop for diabetes. be ready for every moment, with glucerna. it's the number one doctor recommended brand that

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spring, 2020. chicago, like most cities in the u.s., was a ghost town. locked down by the pandemic. but not this secret location. >> so this is the command center. mike masters is ceo of the secure community network. its 24/7 command center is privately funded and staffed with veterans from the

intelligence sector. analysts monitor all the way down to the dark web for anti-semitic threats. >> we saw a spike during covid. our duty desk started registering a significant increase in proliferation of anti-semitism in the online space. >> reporter: that desk has never been seen on national television until now. >> what you're looking at here, all of those blue dots represent a jewish facility. and then the red paddles represent potential risk events. where there is a congruence of the risk alert and the institution we get alerts and our team of analysts start to go to work. >> we work with them day in and out, really 24/7. >> what does their command center do that the fbi can't? >> they give us a different flow of information that we might not otherwise have. >> this gives you a sense ofway they're pulling. >> reporter: masters showed us

an example of a potential attack they prevented. what this person is describing in great, gruesome detail, is a violent attack against jews. >> pink mist into the air until i hear the police outside. it's vile. they've been doing it since the beginning of time but certainly we've seen an uptick since covid. >> reporter: so did the antidefamation league. >> covid was a perfect storm for prejudice in many ways. what extremists and anti-semites did was try to hack into or jump into zoom calls and make people feel scared. this was just using an age-old hatred but a new technology in order to spread that. zoom bombing. so people were spending more time online especially younger people. they realized this was an opportunity to reach out in different ways.

>> including on popular gaming platforms for young children. parents, take note. >> this was the synagogue. >> reporter: anti-semitism is rampant in the gaming world says daniel kelly, the director of the center for technology and society at the adl. >> and this experience you have a swastika and the iron cross here. you also have people who are setting up these kinds of mean craft servers and creating concentration camp re-enactments and doing all sorts of hateful things like going around killing villagers. >> an age-old trope also re-emerged with covid. the conspiracy theory that jews are responsible for disease. >> people first said that covid was some bioweapon developed by jews. then they blamed orthodox jewish communities for being singularly responsible for spreading covid.

then they claimed after pfizer and regeneron and other companies were coming up with medical interventions and vaccines the jews were doing it in order to profit off of the virus. >> if covid had happened prior to the internet, people would have made the same charges but wouldn't have ignited the way they do. >> reporter: as people came out of isolation it continued to spread off line. flyers left on door steps blaming covid on the jews. or well known people using the holocaust to advance the antimask and antivaccine cause. >> even in hitler's germany you could cross the alps into switzerland. you could hide in an attic like anne frank did. >> robert kennedy jr. eventually apologized but the genie was out of the bottle. >> we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star. they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers.

>> the use of the holocaust, people walking around with yellow stars or masks or things like that to compare to covid is a form of holocaust distortion. it's degrading of history. >> when we come back a new, growing form of anti-semitism from the political left. aren't we all just looking for the hottest stocks? (fisher investments) nope. we use diversified strategies to position our client's portfolios for their long-term goals. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions for you, right? (fisher investments) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest. (other money manager) so when do you make more money, only when your clients make more money? (fisher investments) yep. we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments, we're clearly different.

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political science program that drew me and i loved the vibes of the town. super progressive as well. >> reporter: but in 2021 she says she of kicked out of a group called npa, a group she co-founded for survivors of sexual assault. why? because she shared a post on instagram about being a zionist. >> it said jews are indigenous to israel and you can't colonize the land to which you are indigenous to. >> reporter: what happened after that post? >> one of the founding members of npa said you don't think palestinians are being oppressed? but i have no animosity toward palestinians. another member sent this horrible text in the npa group chat accusing me of being an oppressor. he told me that because i'm a zionist i condone violence against palestinians and just made all these uncalled for assumptions. >> reporter: assumptions this human rights lawyer calls contemporary anti-semitism.

>> people today have a very difficult time understanding what zionism is. they don't realize that judaism is not just a religion. that judaism also has this sense of jewish peoplehood where this ethno religion, that jews share a common history, common ancestry. and that history and ancestry is completely rooted in the land of israel. it has absolutely nothing to do with the arab-israeli conflict. they may be very critical as a matter of fact of the current government of israel. they may be very pro palestinian human rights. it makes no difference. they're considered pariahs. >> they accused you of causing sexual violence against others? >> they did. so they told me that because i'm a zionist that that means i'm an oppressor and that means i'm not against all forms of oppression, which means i'm not against sexual violence. >> reporter: this was posted on

npp's instagram account. the origins of sexual violence are rooted in colonialism. being against sexual violence but indifferent to colonialism are conflicting ideologies. justifying the occupation of palestine in any way condones the violence used to acquire the land. this does not mean we do not support survivors or students with different political beliefs. >> the language of the left fighting for the political, racial, and social justice. unfortunately, sometimes i'll say inadvertently is creating an atmosphere that is instead of promoting true incluesivity and acceptance of diversity, it's promoting a perspective that is creating an environment that is hostile toward jews. >> a lot of times when people talk about zionism or anti-zionism, they don't take the next step of saying, what does somebody actually mean by that? >> reporter: rabbi jill jacobs runs a progressive jewish

organization and tries to educate fellow liberals to prevent so-called anti-zionism from devolving into anti-semitism. >> one can criticize israeli policy. one can even make criticisms that are very hard for many jews to hear or that one doesn't agree with. when it crosses the line into anti-semitism, is when you, either use classic anti-semitic tropes, things like jews having too much power, zionists controlling the world, jews wanting money, or when you hear things like, well, today's jews aren't the real jews. they were just descended from european converts. that's anti-semitism. >> reporter: harassment that she experienced at suny nupalt is part of a trend, rising anti-semitism in various forms

across the u.s. >> there's greater demand than our capacity to provide and meet the demand at this moment. >> we've seen incidents at stanford, ucla, northwestern, michigan. columbia. harvard, and the list goes on. >> reporter: the palestinian cause is a prominent one among progressives right now. those voices have big megaphones at universities. >> when i was on campus it was free tibet. why tibet? had anybody been to tibet? not necessarily and it is still not free. but that was the issue of the moment. it is true palestine is the issue of the moment. that's not to discount it. palestinians should be free. there are a lot of factors that go into why palestinian activism is so prominent on college campuses. and there certainly is an anti-semitic element in there but it's not the only or even the primary element.

>> reporter: experts across the board caution anti-semitism is growing on the left but it is not equivalent to hate from the right. >> i'm certainly more terrified of the right, of people who are white nationalists, who are armed, who have a history of walking into synagogues and opening fire. and on the left it is more in the discourse. >> so on the extreme right, they are the tornado that will tear apart your house and kill everyone inside in an instant. the far left is like climate change. slowly but surely the temperature is rising. some people deny it. some people say we can adapt to it. it reaches the point, temperatures become so inhospitable, that people can no longer live there. >> reporter: the situation grew serious when a friend saw threatening posts seemingly

directed at her on the social media platform yik yak. >> people were saying if you see the zionist spit on her. he said he saw death threats. and i called my dad and he came and he picked me up at like 3:00 in the morning. >> reporter: she no longer felt safe going to classes. the president of suny nupalt did send this e-mail to the campus community condemning anti-semitism in its many forms but for blotner it wasn't enough. in june, a formal complaint was filed on behalf of blotner and another student with the u.s. education's office of civil rights. >> the universities have an obligation to make sure all of their students have equal access to all of those educational opportunities. >> reporter: suny nupalts declined to speak with us on camera and the students who cassie says kicked her out of the club did not respond to multiple requests for comment. in a text with blotner claimed they are not anti-semitic.

the university did give us a statement saying they provided support and resources to, quote, those impacted by the events of the past year. they said they work with their jewish students and staff to support them and address anti-semitism. and they underscored as well that they support the free exchange of ideas under the first amendment. what did it feel like being kicked out >> what did it feel like that you got kicked out of the group? >> i feel like i'm having an identity crisis. i've been here when they had to decide if i was more a survivor of sexual violence or feeling more jewish that day because they wanted me to choose between the two. >> coming up, how to stop the hate. >> social media companies were the great disruptors years ago. they need to be disrupted today. ♪

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moment at the white house. >> i was overwhelm. >> deborah sworn in as special envoy to combat and monitor anti-semitism. >> so help me god. >> an ambassador level post for the first time.

>> the leadership of this country recognizes that this is a serious issue. >> what does it say that it even exists? >> it is the good news and the bad news. the good news is it exists. the bad news is that we need it. it is like some sort of cure for a terrible disease. >> a cure ever more elusive. especially online. a recent report found five major social media companies took no action to remove 84% of anti-semitic posts. >> sometimes they respond and remove content. other times they don't. i don't think they're ahead of the curve. i don't want to suggest that some of these larger platforms are doing nothing but it's not unreasonable for users to expect them to be doing more. >> the first way we have to start doing this. we have to set achievable goals. >> damian pat orange once a skin head who recruited people on the streets, is now working on

technology to curb anti-semitism online. >> social media companies were the great disruptors ten years ago. they need to be disrupted today. >> meanwhile law enforcement is focused on disrupting attacks from this rising hate. for the ones they can't prevent, training for how to respond. several organizations including the secure community network travel to synagogues around the country, helping congregants prepare for potential attack. >> beth israel congregation, there's been an ongoing hostage situation. >> it's training the colleyville hostages credited with saving their lives. >> it really teaches us how to survive. >> where are you going to go? >> i remembered my training and i told the guys to run. and i threw the chair. >> when you walk into a room, where are the exits? >> you do that? >> always.

>> even before what happened here. >> i did it before. but now it's vigilance. >> okay, folks. exercise over. >> but there needs to be another solution. what is it? how do we stop this rise in anti-semitism? >> understanding, recognition, condemnation and action. it's to act on it, to educate. >> the nazis came into our house and proceeded to break everything we owned. >> it's something holocaust survivor ruthsteinfeld now dedicates her life to. >> it is all we can do. we can teach people. >> she tells her story frequently to students. >> forgive, accept, but talk about it. >> it's so important for us to teach it to other people for the sole reason of it should never

happen again. >> all the more important when less than half the states in the u.s. mandate holocaust education in school. >> what does it matter that there is an increasing lack of understanding or education about the holocaust? >> it matters because this is a plague. you've got to understand how little things grow into bigger things. how people are taught to hate. >> anti-semitism is often described as the canary in the coal mine. it is an indication of a kind of rot that eventually consumes everything. >> for generations, many jews responded to anti-semitism by retreating, staying quiet. but those we talked to, even victims of hate say no. do the opposite. >> we have that friend's crazy uncle who is a blatant racist or anti-semite. and they'll apologize and we'll all roll our eyes and let it go.

that's not what we need to do. letting things go is a problem. >> you realize that people have strange, bad, crazy misconceptions about jews when you talk to them and they meet you and they realize those misconceptions are wrong. that's how you correct these historical prejudices. >> i wear a jewish star. something i've only started to do recently. >> why is that? >> i'm proud of who i am. with the rise of anti-semitism, i wanted to say here i am. this is who i am. >> standing up to the oldest hate. hate. educating and never forgetting.

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com remember 2020? what was that like? 20, 30 years ago? we were living in lockdown, wondering if it was ever going to end. and some of us just wanted to get away. but there was nowhere to go. borders were closed. even hawaii was locked down. >> you're looking for a pandemic retreat. the governor of hawaii says don't look here. >> for the first time in a long time, the islands could just breathe. and the locals got to experience hawaii in ways it hasn't been since first contact? but then -- we're back, baby! give me a mai tai! ♪