Modern Far-Left's Anti-Semitic Attacks Echo Deeds of Dreaded KKK

Crimes against Jews have long been at the center of religiously motivated attacks in the United States. According to the FBI, prior to the October 7, 2023 attack, crimes against Jews accounted for 68% of all religion-based hate crimes in the U.S. However, anti-Semitic attacks have skyrocketed since the Hamas assault in the Gaza Strip.

A protester holds a sign reading "Free Palestine” in front of Columbia University (Photo: AFP)

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan portrayed itself as pro-American, Christian and pro-law-and-order. The Klan’s infiltration into mainstream American society gave legitimacy and cover to its reprehensible system of racial and religious violence, xenophobia and corruption.

The Ku Klux Klan is the oldest and most infamous of American hate groups. Although Black Americans have typically been the Klan’s primary target, adherents also attack Jewish people, immigrants to the United States, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. In 1865, at the conclusion of the Civil War, six Confederate veterans gathered in Pulaski, Tennessee, to create the Ku Klux Klan, a vigilante group mobilizing a campaign of violence and terror against the African American people. As the group gained members from all strata of Southern white society, it used violent intimidation to prevent Black Americans from voting and holding political office. The first leader of the Ku Klux Klan was Nathan Bedford Forrest. Within the structure of the Klan, he directed a hierarchy of members with outlandish titles, such as „imperial wizard” and „exalted cyclops”.

Hooded costumes, violent “night rides” and the notion that the group made up an "invisible empire” conferred a mystique that only added to the Klan’s infamy. In 1915, the Ku Klux Klan was revived by white Protestants near Atlanta, Georgia.

In addition to the group’s anti-Black ideological core, this second iteration of the Klan also opposed Catholic and Jewish immigrants. By 1925, the Klan had as many as 4 million members and, in some states, considerable political power.

The Klan arose a third time during the 1960s to oppose the Civil Rights Movement and attempt to preserve segregation. Bombings, murders and other attacks by the Klan took a great many lives.

In 2024, the Ku Klux Klan underwent notable reconfigurations among its ranks. Two of the larger factions — the Old Glory Knights and the Loyal White Knights — either faded from relevance or ceased operations altogether. In the wake of these dissolutions, newer groups, such as the Maryland White Knights and the Sacred White Knights, emerged, gaining traction from members of the defunct chapters.

Could legal means help curb the spate of anti-Semitic attacks?

The parallels between the contemporary Jew-hating terrorist network and the Ku Klux Klan also present a legal road map for curbing anti-Semitic attacks, some experts say. Many states used anti-masking statutes to arrest Klan members.

Courts have widely upheld such statutes after balancing the right to expression or free religious worship against the government’s need to ensure the civil rights of all American citizens.

The victims of the Klan also used legal avenues to incapacitate the organisation, forcing their sources of funding to their knees through civil rights and criminal lawsuits. Even private individuals can use laws against extortion and intimidation, among others, to seek financial compensation and severe punishment for the perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks and the financiers behind them.

Cover photo: A protester holds a sign reading "Free Palestine” in front of Columbia University (Photo: AFP)