Antisemitic incidents surge following Hamas-Israel war, dwarfing annual statistics

Antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in the three months since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel have surged, eclipsing annual statistics for the last decade.

According to data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitic incidents rose 360 percent between Oct. 7 and Jan. 7 when compared with the same timeframe one year prior.

But the total of 3,283 incidents in just a quarter of the year also surpasses annual statistics for each of the last 10 years except 2022 – which saw the highest level of antisemitic incidents on record.

“The American Jewish community is facing a threat level that’s now unprecedented in modern history,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. 

“It’s shocking that we’ve recorded more antisemitic incidents in three months than we usually would in an entire year.”

ADL said 2023 data, which is expected to be released later this year, is likely to be the highest on record.

The data includes 60 cases of physical assault, 553 incidents of vandalism, and more than 1,300 cases of written or verbal harassment.

More than 500 of the incidents took place on college campuses while more than 600 were targeted at Jewish institutions like synagogues.

“In this difficult moment, antisemitism is spreading and mutating in alarming ways,” said Greenblatt. “This onslaught of hate includes a dramatic increase in fake bomb threats that disrupt services at synagogues and put communities on edge across the country.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month that antisemitic hate crimes had jumped 60 percent since the start of the war.

“We’ve been opening I think 60 percent more hate crimes investigations post-Oct. 7, then compared to the comparable period pre-Oct. 7,” Wray said during testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“And that’s on top of that already escalating increase that I mentioned,” he said, after noting hate crimes reached a high in 2022.

The FBI director said “the biggest chunk of those are threats against the Jewish community, but there are of course attacks … against others as well,” pointing to attacks against Muslim targets.

Wray last year called the Jewish community “uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum.”