Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are spreading across the U.S. despite an overall decrease in social discrimination in American society, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (ADL) said in a speech last night.

"The renaissance of conspiracy theories is a euphemism for the renaissance of anti-Semitism today," Abraham H. Foxman told an audience of about 80 at the Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel last night.

In an impassioned speech, Foxman said anti-Semitism has been promoted by personalities ranging from Louis Farrakhan to Madonna, and said students should stand up against bigotry and hate speech on college campuses.

Acts of anti-Semitic violence are on the rise, according to Foxman. The ADL counted more than 2,000 anti-Semitic hate crimes in 1994, Foxman said, the highest in its 15 years of annual audits.

Mentioning a host of examples, Foxman said the number of hate crimes against individual Jews has increased, though the number of more traditional acts targeting synagogues, cemeteries and other institutions has declined.

Foxman cited the stabbing death of a Jewish scholar, Yankel Rosen-baum, in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn at the height of Black-Jewish tensions in New York City in the summer of 1991 and a shooting attack on followers of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem M. Schneerson, as they drove along the Brooklyn Bridge.

But more disturbing, Foxman said, was a 1991 poll showing that 31 percent of Americans believe that American Jews are "too powerful, too successful or too influential," up from 14 percent in 1965.

Foxman said bigotry and racism are finding bases of sympathy in college campuses.

"In the 1960s what was not on the campus was racism and anti-Semitism," he told the audience.

"Not that kids in the college campuses then were immune" to anti-Semitic invectives, he said, "yet they did not act it out."

Combined Racism, Anti-Semitism

Foxman, who immigrated to the U.S. after surviving World War II as a child in Poland, criticized revisionist historians and others who deny the Holocaust occurred. In particular, he condemned Blacks who he said were anti-Semites, including Farrakhan and Khallid Mohammed, two leaders of the militant Nation of Islam.

"Why is that necessary for Black pride? Why is Holocaust denial an ingredient in terms of oppression [of Blacks]?" Foxman asked, referring to historians who have accused Jews of engaging in a disproportionate share of the Atlantic slave trade.

Referring to a 1991 rash of inci- dents in which college newspapers were sent adsdenying that the Holocaust occurred, Foxman saidthat college students were often misguided inapplying liberal principles of free speech.

"Thirty-nine newspapers ran the ad," he said."Why is this issue playing out in college campusesunder the banner of academic freedom and freedomof speech?"

Foxman said no newspaper would have run asimilar advertisement denying the existence ofslavery in the U.S. The Crimson did not publishthe advertisement.

Foxman also blasted City University of New Yorkprofessor Leonard Jeffries, who was fired as chairof City College's Black studies department foranti-Semitic remarks, but was subsequentlyreinstated.

Foxman added: "Rev. Farrakhan is a Black racistwhose enemy is white man--it's 'whitie.' But itisn't safe to take on a 'whitie.' What is safe isto take on the Jew in the white community."

Foxman said a pressing concern was the absenceof immediate condemnation of personalities such asDavid Duke and Pat Buchanan, who have madeanti-Semitic remarks.

"Permissiveness has made it more permissible inthis society for racists and anti-Semites to selltheir wares," Foxman warned.

But the attorney concluded his speech, "TheRenaissance of Conspiracy Theories," with a noteof hope.

"There is an innate decency in our society thatsays, 'No, enough,'" Foxman said. "The moreconspiracy theories take life, the more conspiracytheories become popular, the more the need for usto stand up and ask the questions and say 'Nomore, we've had it.'