Research has shown a rising level of antisemitism since the 2010s.[6][7] According to the ADL, there were 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2023, a 140% bump from the 3,698 incidents in 2022 and the highest since 1979. Compared to 2022, assaults, vandalism and harassment rose by 45%, 69% and 184% respectively in 2023.[8] The ADL reported a 200% increase in antisemitic incidents from October 7, 2023, to September 24, 2024, vis-à-vis 2022–23. They explained that the increase was due partly to their new methodology,[9] which was disputed by some current and former staff disagreeing with the ADL's methodology, e.g. definition of antisemitism being used.[10]
According to the FBI's 2023 statistics, antisemitic incidents accounted for 68% of all religion-based hate crimes, a 63% bump vis-à-vis 2022. The American Jewish Committee (AJC) commented that it was likely much lower than the actual number as hate crimes had been widely underreported across the country.[11]
Scholars claimed the rise signaled a shift in the nature and prevalence of antisemitism in United States that portended a return to the era of explicit and pervasive antisemitism.[12][13][14] According to an August 2024 survey by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, 3.5million Jews in America have experienced antisemitism since the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel. Of the 1,075 American Jews interviewed, 28% claimed to have heard "Jews care too much about money", 25% heard "Jews control the world", 14% heard "American Jews care more about Israel than about the US", and 13% heard "the Holocaust did not happen" or its severity has been "exaggerated".[15][16]
Jewish American man Paul Kessler was a victim of suspected involuntary manslaughter. The suspect, a Moorpark College professor, hit Kessler's head with a megaphone over disagreement at a rally. Kessler fell with another hit and died of intracerebral hemorrhage.[17] The suspect has pleaded not guilty.[18] Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a condemnation,[19] while the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles called it an "antisemitic crime".[20]
April 20, 2022
Assault
0
1
Manhattan, New York
Attack on Matt Greenman: Matt Greenman, a Jewish man, was assaulted in an antisemitic hate crime in New York City while watching a rally organized by the group Within Our Lifetime. Saadah Masoud, one of the group's founders, pled guilty to the assault and was sentenced to 18 months in prison in March 2023.[21][22][23]
Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis: Four people were taken hostage by a British Pakistani at a synagogue. After a standoff with police, the attacker was killed and all hostages escaped unharmed.[24][25][26]
October 31, 2021
Arson
0
0
Austin, Texas
Austin synagogue arson: 18-year old Franklin Barrett Sechriest set fire to the main doors of the sanctuary of Congregation Beth Israel, causing more than $250,000 in damage. Sechriest admitted he conducted the attack due to his hatred of Jews and had written, "I set a synagogue on fire," in his personal journal.[27][28][29]
Attack on Joseph Borgen: During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, five men attacked Joseph Borgen, a visibly Jewish man, as he walked through Times Square to a pro-Israel rally. Borgen was punched, kicked, bludgeoned with flag poles and a crutch, and maced and peppered spray, resulting in his hospitalization with a concussion.[30][31] The attackers also yelled anti-Semitic slurs.[32][31] Five activists were arrested, found guilty for the attack and received sentences of up to 7 years in prison.[33][34][35]
Masked and wielding a large blade, Grafton E. Thomas invaded the home of a Hasidicrabbi celebrating Hanukkah. He began stabbing the guests, leaving five wounded, two of which were hospitalized in critical condition.[44][45][46] 72-year-old-man Josef Neuman, who was in a coma for 59 days, succumbed to his wounds in March 2020.[47] The rabbi's son was also among the injured.[48]
David Nathaniel Anderson (age 47) and his girlfriend Francine Graham (age 50)[49] perpetrated a shooting at a kosher grocery store. Five people were killed, including the two assailants and three civilians whom they attacked. Additionally, the assailants wounded one civilian and two police officers.[50][51][52] Anderson had made posts on social media that were anti-police and anti-Semitic. His language was linked to that used by the Black Hebrew Israelite movement.[53]
2019 synagogue vandalism: In a campaign the group dubbed "Operation Kristallnacht", members of the neo-Nazi accelerationist paramilitary group The Base vandalized the synagogues Beth Israel Sinai Congregation and Temple Jacob. Three members of The Base were arrested and subsequently found guilty of vandalism.[54][55][56] On June 5, 2024, 24-year-old Nathan Weeden was sentenced to 26 months in prison and 3 months of supervised release for the incident.[57]
In a far-right rally, attendees were filmed chanting "[the] Jews will not replace us". The rally turned deadly when James Alex Fields Jr., one of the attendees, launched a vehicle-ramming attack on an opposing group.[68][67]
2014 Overland Park shootings: 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a Klansman and neo-Nazi,[69] perpetrated shootings at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community. A total of three people were killed in the shootings, two of whom were shot at the community center and one shot at the retirement community.[70]
Seattle Jewish Federation shooting: at around 4:00 p.m. Naveed Afzal Haq entered the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building and shot six women, one fatally.[75] Witnesses reported that before Haq began shooting he shouted, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel."[76]
Murder of Ariel Sellouk: Mohammed Ali Alayed, who had stopped socializing with his Jewish friend Ariel Sellouk due to becoming a religiously strict Muslim, came back to Alayed's apartment after not seeing each other for a year. Alayed slit Sellouk's throat and nearly decapitated him. Alayed pled guilty and was sentenced to 60 years in prison on April 19, 2004.[77][78]
Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting: at around 10:50 a.m. white supremacist Buford O. Furrow, Jr. walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, firing 70 shots into the complex. The gunfire wounded five people: three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities.[83][84]
1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting: Rashid Baz shot at a van of 15 ChabadOrthodox Jewish students who were traveling on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, killing one and injuring three others.[85] Baz was arrested and found to be in possession of anti-Jewish literature, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a stun gun, a bulletproof vest, and two 50-round ammunition magazines. Initially, Baz claimed a traffic dispute led him to commit the shootings, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation initially classified the case as road rage.[86] Witnesses testified that on the day of the shooting Baz had attended "a raging anti-Semitic sermon" by Imam Reda Shata at the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge.[87]
Crown Heights riot: a race riot that took place in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York City in which black residents turned against Orthodox JewishChabad residents. The riots began on August 19, 1991, after two children of Guyanese immigrants were accidentally struck by one of the cars in the motorcade of RebbeMenachem Mendel Schneerson, the leader of Chabad, a Jewish religious movement. One child died and the second was severely injured. In the wake of the fatal accident, some black youths attacked several Jews on the street, seriously injuring several and fatally injuring Yankel Rosenbaum, an Orthodox Jewish student from Australia.[88]
Neal Rosenblum: was shot and killed because of his Jewish appearance, wearing Haredi attire. The killer was released from prison on October 23, 2017, after serving 15 years of the maximum 20.
Guests who attended a bar mitzvah were leaving Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel synagogue when white supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin began shooting at them, killing Gerald Gordon, and wounding Steven Goldman and William Ash.[90][91][92]
Lynching of Leo Frank: Leo Frank was an American factory superintendent who was wrongly convicted in 1913 of the murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Atlanta, Georgia.[94][96] His trial, conviction, and appeals attracted national attention. A mob lynched him on August 17, 1915, in response to the commutation of his death sentence.
General Order No. 11 was an order issued by Union Major-General Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, during the Vicksburg Campaign, that took place during the American Civil War. The order expelled all Jews from Grant's military district, comprising areas of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. Grant issued the order in an effort to reduce Union military corruption, and stop an illicit trade of Southern cotton, which Grant thought was being run "mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders."[97]
At Holly Springs, Mississippi, Grant's Union Army supply depot, Jewish persons were rounded up and forced to leave the city by foot. On December 20, 1862, three days after Grant's order, Confederate Major General Earl Van Dorn's Confederate Army raided Holly Springs, that prevented many Jewish persons from potential expulsion. Although delayed by Van Dorn's raid, Grant's order was fully implemented at Paducah, Kentucky. Thirty Jewish families were expelled and roughly treated from the city. Jewish community leaders protested, and there was an outcry by members of Congress and the press; President Abraham Lincoln countermanded the General Order on January 4, 1863. Grant claimed during his 1868 Presidential campaign that he had issued the order without prejudice against Jews as a way to address a problem that "certain Jews had caused".[98]
^"Audit of Antisemitic Incidents". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved October 14, 2024. Each year, ADL tracks incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism and assault in the United States. Since 1979 we have published this information in an annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents.
Take an in-depth look at antisemitic incidents in the U.S. and compare annual trends.
Becker, Amy B. (2020). "Polarization and American Jews: The Partisan Debate Over Attribution of Blame and Responsibility for Rising Anti-Semitism in the United States". Social Science Quarterly. 101 (4): 1572–1583. doi:10.1111/ssqu.12829.
Goldberg, Chad Alan (March 4, 2023). "From multiculturalism to antisemitism? Revisiting the Jewish question in America". American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 11 (2): 269–292. doi:10.1057/s41290-023-00185-6.
Steinacher, Gerald J. (July 21, 2023). "The rise of racism and antisemitism in the age of globalization". In Karner, Christian; Hofäcker, Dirk (eds.). Research Handbook on the Sociology of Globalization. pp. 225–237. doi:10.4337/9781839101571.00031. ISBN978-1-83910-157-1.
^"Antisemitism". Southern Poverty Law Center. 2024. Retrieved October 7, 2024. Throughout 2023, antisemitism persisted as a serious threat to Jewish communities. The year was marked both by an increase in antisemitic harassment, vandalism and violence as well as by concerted efforts by the federal government and community organizations to confront these threats. The number of active antisemitic hate groups remained relatively stagnant compared to the previous year; their activities, however, continued to affect communities across the country.
"AJC Warns: Staggering FBI Hate Crimes Data Likely Represents Under-Reporting of Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes". American Jewish Committee. September 23, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2024. With the FBI reporting that hate crimes against Jews increased a staggering 63% year over year, from 1,124 in 2022 to 1,832 in 2023, AJC recognizes that the actual numbers of incidents is likely greater, as hate crimes are widely underreported across the country. Despite Jews only accounting for 2% of the U.S. population, the community was the target of 68% of religiously motivated hate crimes committed in 2023.
"New FBI Data Reflects Record-High Number of Anti-Jewish Hate Crimes". Anti-Defamation League. September 23, 2024. Retrieved October 10, 2024. Although Jews only make up around 2 percent of the U.S. population, reported single-bias anti-Jewish hate crimes comprised 15 percent of all hate crimes and 68 percent of all reported religion-based hate crimes in 2023, which is consistent with patterns from prior years.
^"The Kids Got In The Way: All the warning signs were there, but still Buford Furrow got his hands on guns and went on a rampage." Time. 154.8. August 23, 1999. p24.
^"A Visitor from the Dark Side: The accused L.A. gunner drove into town on a high of delusion and self-destruction". Newsweek. August 23, 1999. p. 32.
^"The modern historical consensus, as exemplified in the Dinnerstein book, is that ... Leo Frank was an innocent man convicted at an unfair trial."[93]
