Report raises alarm as antisemitic incidents reach 43-year high

In Los Angeles, two Orthodox Jewish men were shot on consecutive mornings last month as they left religious services. Federal prosecutors said the suspect had a history of harassing Jews and searched online for a kosher deli before the shootings.

In Tucson, a professor was shot dead in October in what authorities say was an attack motivated in part by the suspect’s belief that the man was Jewish.

Outside Dallas, FBI agents killed a man early last year after he took congregants hostage in a synagogue, shouted conspiracies about Jews wielding political power and threatened to shoot his victims.

A new report suggests the acts are part of a larger trend of record levels of physical violence, harassment and vandalism against Jews that has left no U.S. city or region with a large Jewish population untouched. The Anti-Defamation League said its tally of physical assaults was the highest it has ever logged.

The civil rights organization, which identifies antisemitic incidents by researching reports from police, victims and news organizations, found that 139 Jews were physically assaulted in 111 incidents last year, including the two men in L.A. who survived and the Arizona State professor who did not. The vast majority of the assaults last year did not involve deadly weapons. Still, the totals were up from 131 assault victims in 88 incidents in 2021.

“It’s extremely concerning that antisemitic incidents are growing more violent,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the group’s chief executive, said in an interview. “Orthodox Jews, who typically are more easily identifiable than other members of the Jewish community, were disproportionately targeted in 2022, and there was a corresponding increase in incidents that target Jewish spaces…. The idea that we are no longer safe in our synagogues, our shuls, or our communal spaces is simply unacceptable.”

In total, the ADL found 3,697 incidents of antisemitism last year in the U.S., including vandalism and harassment in addition to assaults. The number, the highest the group has counted since it began compiling reports on anti-Jewish hatred in 1979, represents a 36% increase from 2021. That year also set a record with 2,717 incidents, while 2020 showed a slight year-to-year dip, probably because of the slowdown of public life due to pandemic-related closures of houses of worship, businesses and workplaces.

Overall, the ADL said, the pattern over the last years has been one of growing violence, vandalism and rhetoric aimed at Jews. The group logged 2,107 antisemitic incidents in 2019 and 1,879 in 2018. The 2018 numbers included the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, at the Tree of Life congregation in Pittsburgh in which 11 were killed. In 2019, there was another deadly mass shooting, at the Chabad of Poway in California.

Last year’s incidents took place in every state and the District of Columbia, but five states — all with significant Jewish populations — accounted for more than half of them. New York was first, with 580, followed by California with 518. New Jersey, Florida and Texas rounded out the top five.