There are things you can blame on Trump and things you can't, but the explosion of anti-Semitism in America last year is almost certainly tied to the Trump campaign's and administration's open embrace of xenophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, from the first days of his campaign to his post-Charlottesville refusal to condemn white nationalist marchers. The people rallying against immigrants and refugees are the same crowd of white supremacists that promote anti-Semitism as well; embracing one means emboldening the other.
Antisemitic incidents in the US surged 57% in 2017, the Anti-Defamation League said on Tuesday, the largest year-on-year increase since the Jewish civil rights group began collecting data in 1979.
Close to 2,000 cases of harassment, vandalism and physical assault were recorded, the highest number of antisemitic incidents since 1994, it said. [...]
The ADL’s report said US schools and colleges were particularly affected, with antisemitic incidents nearly doubling since 2016, often including swastikas drawn on school facilities or Jewish students’ notebooks. Sometimes vandalism included phrases such as: “Hitler was not wrong” or “white power”.
According to the ADL, the "dramatic increase in anti-Semitic acts of vandalism is particularly concerning because it indicates perpetrators feel emboldened enough to break the law." They also report that the months immediately surrounding Trump's inauguration saw the most incidents.
The three worst months were in first quarter of the year – with 208, 273, and 273 incidents in January, February, and March, respectively. These months include the 163 bomb threats against Jewish institutions.