(Jewish Group) Why Neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the U.S. [View all]

About a dozen neo-Nazis marched on Saturday through downtown Columbus, Ohio waving swastika flags. The march was just the latest of hundreds of such rallies held across the nation in the past two years.

“Almost every single weekend, white supremacists are rallying in some neighborhood,” said Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. The group’s data found 282 such events in 2023. This summer alone, there were 64 white supremacist events across 25 states.

The regularity with which they happen can both numb and instill fear in Jewish communities. Segal said they are not part of a rising trend of antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in Israel, but have been occurring since 2016, “around the time of the first Trump administration.”

Segal said these rallies are usually organized by small groups hoping to get attention online, where they can attract new recruits. Additionally, the marches are sometimes the result of a turf war, almost a “soap opera” between competing white supremacist groups, as likely happened in Columbus.

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