Rise in anti-semitic incidents goes beyond recent violent attacks

In 2017, anti-Semitic incidents—including harassment, vandalism and assault, as reported to the league by victims, law enforcement and the media—jumped 57%, the largest single-year increase since the group began tracking such data in the 1970s. While 2018 was slightly better, it still had the third-highest total of anti-Semitic incidents the group has ever recorded, with anti-Semitic assaults more than doubling from 2017.

The FBI, which compiles hate-crime data based on reports from local law-enforcement agencies, found the number of such incidents rose 29% in 2018 from 2015.

As of September, anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City—home to the U.S.’s largest Jewish population—were up 51% this year from the same period last year, according to New York Police Department data. That included a string of assaults against Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, as well as a sharp rise in anti-Semitic subway graffiti. In one incident this year, “DIE JEW BITCH,” along with a swastika, was scrawled over a poster of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.