Antisemitic incidents in US surge to record high: report

Reports of antisemitic incidents in the US have reached a record high since last year’s Hamas attack in Israel, according to a preliminary report from the Anti-Defamation League Center for Extremism (ADL).

The group found more than 10,000 incidents from 7 October 2023 to 24 September of this year, more than a 200% increase compared to the same period a year earlier.

It is the highest ever since the ADL began tracking such incidents in 1979.

The report comes just days after the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint statement warning of possible violent threats amid the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East.

Since last October’s Hamas attack on Israel which saw around 1,200 people killed “Jewish Americans haven’t had a single moment of respite,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

“Instead, we’ve faced a shocking number of antisemitic threats and experienced calls for more violence against Israelis and Jews everywhere.”

The more than 10,000 episodes of antisemitism reported by the ADL included roughly 8,015 incidents of verbal or written harassment, 1,840 incidents of vandalism and 150 incidents of physical assault.

The states with the highest number of recorded cases in the report were California, with 1,266 incidents, New York with 1,218, New Jersey with 830, and Florida with 463.

The ADL said that it expected its preliminary numbers to increase as it receives more data. The final report for 2024 will be published in the spring of 2025.

Part of the overall increase comes from a change in methodology to include “expressions of opposition to Zionism, as well as support for resistance against Israel or Zionists that could be perceived as supporting terrorism”, the ADL said.

The ADL’s preliminary report tallied more than 3,000 of incidents that took place during anti-Israel rallies “which featured regular explicit expressions of support for terrorist groups”, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

Excluding these incidents, the ADL counted 7,523 episodes of antisemitism, a 103% increase from 2022.

Following the 7 October attack, Israel launched a massive military operation in the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas.

Since then, 41,870 Palestinians have been killed and more than 97,000 injured in Gaza, most of them women and children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

The war inspired a wave of demonstrations across the US, particularly at college campuses, with many protesting against the growing humanitarian toll.

In Lebanon, more than 1,000 people have been killed while up to a million people may have been displaced since Israel launched its attack against Iran-backed Hezbollah.

The continued violence in the region has led to a surge in anti-Muslim and Islamophobic incidents as well across the US.

Anti-Muslim incidents reached 8,061 in 2023, according to a report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released in April. The report marked the highest level since CAIR began tallying nearly 30 years ago, with nearly half coming after the 7 October attack.