Antisemitic incidents in US soar 337 percent since Hamas attack: ADL

Antisemitic incidents in the United States have jumped 337 percent since Hamas launched its deadly attack on Israel more than two months ago, according to new statistics from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

There have been more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. since the war between Israel and militant group Hamas broke out on Oct. 7, the group reported Monday, the most incidents the ADL has recorded in a two-month period since it started tracking incidents in 1979.

There were 2,031 antisemitic incidents between Oct. 7 and Dec. 7, a significant jump from the 465 incidents reported during the same period last year. On average, the ADL said Jewish people experienced nearly 34 antisemitic incidents per day since the war started.

The ADL said the total includes 40 incidents of physical assault, 337 incidents of vandalism, 749 incidents of verbal or written harassment and 905 rallies where antisemitic rhetoric was taking place.

“This terrifying pattern of antisemitic attacks has been relentless since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, with no signs of diminishing,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

“The lid to the sewers is off, and Jewish communities all across the country are being inundated with hate. Public officials and college leaders must turn down the temperature and take clear action to show this behavior is unacceptable to prevent more violence,” he added.

The ADL said the total also included 400 incidents of antisemitism on college campuses, which is up from the 33 incidents reported last year. These statistics come just days after three university presidents testified in a congressional hearing about how they are combatting antisemitism on their campuses.

The university presidents from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faced backlash for saying that it would depend on the context whether comments calling for genocide of Jewish people would be considered harassment. Penn’s president resigned over the weekend in the wake of the uproar.

Weeks after the war broke out, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned of “historic” levels of antisemitism across the U.S. Just last week, Wray said there was a 60 percent increase in hate crime investigations since Oct. 7, with most of them being against the Jewish community.

Islamophobic incidents have also been on the rise over the last two months. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported last week that there have been 2,171 complaints of hate against Muslims and Palestinians since Oct. 7, which is a 172 percent increase over the same period last year.

“It’s staggering to see this kind of spike in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian hate in less than two months,” said Corey Saylor, CAIR research and advocacy director, in a statement. “Far too many people and institutions have spent the past two months weaponizing Islamophobia and anti-Arab bias to both justify the ongoing violence against Palestinians in Gaza and silence supporters of Palestinian human rights here in America.”