FBI: Anti-Jewish hate crimes reached new high in U.S. in 2024

A whopping 69% of all religion-based hate crimes were directed at Jews.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Anti-Jewish hate crimes reached a new high in the U.S. in 2024, according to the FBI’s hate-crimes report released Tuesday.

Under the category of reported “single-bias anti-Jewish incidents,” the agency said there were 1,938 such crimes last year, a 5.8% increase over 2023.

This is an average of more than five hate crimes per day.

This was the highest number ever logged by the FBI since it began tracking such data in 1991.

A whopping 69% of all religion-based hate crimes were directed at Jews, and 16.6% of all hate crimes in total, though they represent around 2% of the American population.

While the majority of reported incidents (1,130) were of destruction or damage to property, with eight arson attacks, there were 67 cases of aggravated assault, 111 of simple assault and 672 cases of intimidation.

California led all states in reported incidents, followed by New Jersey and New York.

Leading Jewish organizations reacted with concern to the figures.

American Jewish Committee head Ted Deutch stated, “Jews are being targeted not just out of hate, but because some wrongly believe that violence or intimidation is justified by global events. With the added climate of rising polarization and fading trust in democracy, American Jews are facing a perfect storm of hate.”

Deutch called on the American people to help eliminate the scourge of antisemitism, saying, “The targeting of Jews is not a Jewish problem; it is a societywide issue that demands a societywide response.”

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of Jewish Federations of North America, focused on the need for Jewish communities to receive more governmental assistance to protect them, considering that “American Jews have experienced violence, harassment, intimidation and antisemitic vandalism at unprecedented levels.”

“While we in the philanthropic sector are doing our part, philanthropy alone cannot cover the $765 million our community pays each year in security costs,” he noted.

“Since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, Jewish Americans have not had a moment of respite and have experienced antisemitism at K-12 school, on college campuses, in the public square, at work and Jewish institutions,” said Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. “Our government and leaders must take these numbers seriously and enact adequate measures to protect all Americans from the scourge of hate crimes.”

The ADL has its own antisemitism tracker, which recorded a far higher number of incidents for last year – 9,354 – also a record-breaking figure.

Its sources also disputed the FBI count of assaults, noting 196 such incidents rather than the FBI’s total of 178.

While the ADL does not consider anti-Israel activism in and of itself as antisemitic, the group noted that thousands of the anti-Jewish hate crimes last year took place at or near anti-Israel rallies.

In addition, more than half of all 2,606 antisemitic vandalism incidents it recorded included references to Israel or Zionism.