The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism today launched a new, national campaign to mobilize all Americans, and especially non-Jews, to #StandUpToJewishHate by using the blue square emoji - 🟦 - as a unifying symbol of support. Jews only make up 2.4% of the American population1 yet are the victims of 55% of religious-based hate crimes2. That startling discrepancy is the cornerstone of this new omnichannel campaign, created through a $25 million investment by Robert K. Kraft and his family, which combines alarming data with humanizing storytelling representing everyday instances of antisemitism to encourage audiences to recognize Jewish hate in order to stand up against it.
Through the #StandUpToJewishHate campaign, the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism is establishing 🟦, the Blue Square emoji already on all smartphones, as a simple, but powerful symbol of solidarity and support for the Jewish community. The 🟦 will make its debut by taking up 2.4% of TV and digital screens, billboards and social feeds to call attention to the disturbing disparity between the Jewish population size and scale of hate the community faces, both online and in-person.
While high-profile events have started to make more people aware of antisemitism in the past year, many outside the Jewish community still are not aware of or recognize the scale of Jewish hate. According to a survey by Wunderman Thompson SONAR, over 52% of U.S. adults 18+ do not believe “antisemitism is a big problem,” and 45% believe that Jewish people are more than capable of handling issues of antisemitism on their own3. Another recent study from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that 85% of Americans believe at least one anti-Jewish trope4. Additionally, the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism has observed an increase in discussion of antisemitism online over the past two years, with the biggest increases in conversation in 2022 related to antisemitic flyers, conspiracy theories, and the Holocaust5. We cannot let 2.4% of the population fight antisemitism on its own.