Civil rights groups in the United States, such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),[1] [2] American Jewish Committee (AJC)[3] and Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC),[4] catalog antisemitic incidents, including assaults, harassment, vandalism, violence and threats of violence.
Research has shown a rising level of antisemitism since the 2010s.[5] 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. 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,[6] which was disputed by some current and former staff disagreeing with the ADL's methodology, e.g. definition of antisemitism being used.[7]
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.
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.[8] [9] [10] According to an August 2024 survey by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, 3.5 million Jews in America have experienced antisemitism since the 2023 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".[11] [12]
| Date | Reported type | data-sort-type="number" | Dead | data-sort-type="number" | Injured | Location | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 November 2023 | Involuntary manslaughter | 1 | 0 | Thousand Oaks, California | 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. The suspect has pleaded not guilty. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a condemnation,[13] while the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles called it an "antisemitic crime".[14] | ||
| 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.[15] [16] [17] | ||
| January 15, 2022 | Hostage taking | 1 | 0 | Colleyville, Texas | 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.[18] [19] [20] | ||
| 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.[21] [22] [23] | ||
| Gang attack | 0 | 1 | Times Square, Manhattan, New York | 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.[24] The attackers also yelled anti-Semitic slurs.[25] [26] Five activists were arrested, found guilty for the attack and received sentences of up to 7 years in prison.[27] [28] [29] | |||
| April–May 2021 | Public school assignment | 0 | 0 | Tenafly, New Jersey | In early April 2021,[30] a fifth-grade teacher at Maugham Elementary School instructed a 5th grade student to dress up as Adolf Hitler and to write a first-person essay from the perspective of the Nazi leader touting his "accomplishments" as a part of a class assignment.[31] [32] After initially defending the teacher and the school's actions,[33] [34] [35] the board of Tenafly Public Schools suspended the teacher and the principal of the school with pay and opened an investigation into the incident.[36] [37] | ||
| Stabbing | 1 | 4 | Monsey, New York | See main article: Monsey Hanukkah stabbing. Masked and wielding a large blade, Grafton E. Thomas invaded the home of a Hasidic rabbi celebrating Hanukkah. He began stabbing the guests, leaving five wounded, two of which were hospitalized in critical condition.[38] [39] [40] 72-year-old-man Josef Neuman, who was in a coma for 59 days, succumbed to his wounds in March 2020.[41] The rabbi's son was also among the injured.[42] | |||
| Shooting | 7 | 3 | Jersey City, New Jersey | See main article: 2019 Jersey City shooting. David Nathaniel Anderson (age 47) and his girlfriend Francine Graham (age 50)[43] 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.[44] [45] [46] 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.[47] | |||
| September 19, 2019 | Vandalism | 0 | 0 | Racine, Wisconsin and Hancock, Michigan | 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.[48] [49] [50] 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.[51] | ||
| Shooting | 1 | 3 | Poway, California | Poway synagogue shooting John Earnest fired shots inside the synagogue, Chabad of Poway.[52] [53] [54] One woman was killed and three others were injured, including the synagogue's rabbi.[55] [56] In an open letter posted on 8chan shortly before the shooting and signed with Earnest's name, the author blamed Jews for the "meticulously planned genocide of the European race", a white genocide conspiracy theory.[57] | |||
| Shooting | 11 | 6 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh synagogue shooting Robert Gregory Bowers killed eleven people and wounded six in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation. It was the deadliest attack on a local Jewish community in the United States.[58] Bowers had earlier posted anti-Semitic posted on Gab.[59] towards the organization HIAS. Referring to Central American migrant caravans and immigrants, he wrote that "HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in."[60] [61] | |||
| 11–12 August 2017 | Riot | 3 | 49+ | Charlottesville, Virginia | See main article: Unite the Right rally. 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.[62] | ||
| Shooting | 3 | 0 | Overland Park, Kansas | Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a Klansman and neo-Nazi,[63] 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.[64] | |||
| Shooting | 1 | 1 | Washington, D.C. | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting At about 12:50 pm on June 10, 2009, 88-year-old white supremacist James Wenneker von Brunn entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with a rifle and fatally shot Museum Special Police Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns. Other security guards returned fire, wounding von Brunn, who was apprehended.[65] [66] [67] [68] | |||
| Shooting | 1 | 6 | Seattle, Washington | 2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting at around 4:00 pm. Naveed Afzal Haq entered the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle building and shot six women, one fatally.[69] Witnesses reported that before Haq began shooting he shouted, "I'm a Muslim American; I'm angry at Israel."[70] | |||
| Stabbing | 1 | 0 | Houston, Texas | 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.[71] [72] | |||
| Shooting | 2 | 5 | Los Angeles, California | 2002 Los Angeles International Airport shooting Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national,[73] opened fire at the airline ticket counter of El Al, Israel's national airline, at Los Angeles International Airport. Two people were killed and four others were injured before the gunman was fatally shot by an El Al security guard.[74] In September 2002, federal investigators concluded that Hadayet hoped to influence U.S. government policy in favor of the Palestinians, and that the incident was a terrorist act.[75] [76] | |||
| Shooting | 1 | 5 | Los Angeles, California | Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting at around 10:50 am. 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.[77] [78] | |||
| Shooting | 1 | 3 | New York, New York | 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting Rashid Baz shot at a van of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish students who were traveling on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, killing one and injuring three others.[79] 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.[80] 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.[81] | |||
| – August 21 | Riot | 1 | New York, New York | 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 Jewish Chabad 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 Rebbe Menachem 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.[82] | |||
| April 17, 1986 | Murder | 1 | 0 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania | 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. | ||
| Shooting | 1 | 0 | Denver, Colorado | Members of the white nationalist group The Order murdered Jewish talk radio host Alan Berg in a shooting.[83] | |||
| Shooting | 1 | 2 | St. Louis, Missouri | 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.[84] [85] [86] | |||
| November 11, 1957 and October 14, 1958 | Bombing | 0 | 0 | Temple Beth-El, Nashville, Tennessee. Temple Emanuel, Gastonia, North Carolina. Temple Beth-El, Miami, Florida. Jewish Community Center, Nashville, Tennessee. Jewish Community Center, Jacksonville, Florida. Temple Beth-El, Birmingham, Alabama. The Temple, Atlanta, Georgia. Temple Anshei Emeth, Peoria, Illinois. | 1950s synagogue bombings Five bombings and three attempted bombings of synagogues, seven in the Southern United States and one in the Midwest United States. There were no deaths or injuries. Some of the bombings are unsolved to this day. | ||
| Lynching | 1 | 0 | Marietta, Georgia | 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. 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. | |||
| Order | Parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky | 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."[87] 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".[88] |