(Jewish Group) What CNN's Dana Bash learned reporting on the rise in antisemitism

When Dana Bash was in her early 20s, her grandfather, Frank Weinman, took her on a family trip through his childhood towns in Vienna, Hungary and Slovakia along with a Nazi ghetto in Czechoslovakia to give them an up-close perspective of the horrors of the Holocaust and the lessons to be learned. Three decades later, now a prominent anchor and the chief political correspondent at CNN, Bash is taking a lead role in amplifying those teachings amid a dramatic rise in antisemitic violence across the U.S.

In the CNN documentary “Rising Hate: Antisemitism in America,” set to air Sunday evening and available on demand beginning Monday, Bash visits various Jewish communities still reeling from recent attacks, including Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, and the Chabad of Poway synagogue in California. She also spoke with Ruth Steinfeld, who survived a Nazi concentration camp after being taken to safety by a French organization hiding Jewish children, who said she sees the same kind of hate bubbling up in recent years.

In an interview, Bash said she was honored when asked to do the project for the network, but was also sad that it was even necessary. The producer of the CNN documentary, Melissa Dunst Lipman, pitched the idea following the increased attacks and the hostage standoff in Colleyville. “The numbers just made it, unfortunately, very newsworthy,” Bash said.

In the opening part of the documentary, Paul Abbate, the deputy director of the FBI, confirms that the threat level against the Jewish community in the U.S. is at historic levels, higher than it is toward people of other religions. The Anti-Defamation League tallied in 2021 the highest number of antisemitic incidents since it started tabulating antisemitism in 1979.

“I honestly didn’t realize how much hate was zeroing in on Jews,” Bash said.


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Hopefully, I will get to see this tonight. It would be nice to hear others thoughts.