Barr Blames Hate Crimes on Crumbling Values

NEW YORK — U.S. Atty. Gen. William P. Barr has suggested that the rise of anti-Semitism and hate crime in the United States is linked to “the crumbling of traditional values.”

At a dinner June 7 of Agudath Israel, an Orthodox Jewish movement, he said “current anti-religious activity” may be “fueled by increasing secularization. I wonder whether the denigration of religion in popular culture--the portrayal of those with devoutly held religious beliefs as somehow ‘strange’--may not contribute to the atmosphere of intolerance and hate.”