(DCWatchdog.com) – As per data collected by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), antisemitic activities in the United States escalated dramatically in 2023, reaching an unprecedented peak.
This significant portion of the increase occurred in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel.
The nation witnessed over 8,800 incidents of antisemitism, which involved assaults, harassment, and acts of vandalism, marking a consecutive year of unparalleled occurrences of such nature.
CEO of ADL Jonathan Greenblatt articulated said, “Antisemitism is nothing short of a national emergency, a five-alarm fire that is still raging across the country and in our local communities and campuses.”
He called for an urgent, unified response from all societal and governmental sectors to combat this rising tide of antisemitism and echoed a similar national strategy already in place.
A considerable segment of these incidents, approximately 5,200, was directly linked to the conflict between Hamas and Israel, which shed light on how this confrontation has fueled antisemitic sentiment globally.
Furthermore, the ADL documented a significant uptick in anti-Israel activism, with instances that could be interpreted as endorsing terrorism or aggression against Jews, Israelis, or Zionists.
The outcome of the Oct. 7 assault also saw a notable surge in harassment and vandalism in 2023 where more than 6,500 individuals faced antisemitic provocations, a staggering increase of 184 % from the previous year.
Vandalism incidents, frequently involving swastikas, rose by 69 %.
Moreover, the period witnessed an alarming escalation in bomb threats to Jewish institutions, which exceeded 1,000 instances and surpassed the previous year’s figure tenfold, which marked the most extensive antisemitic bomb threat series recorded by the ADL.
This environment of intensified antisemitism, especially after the Oct. 7 conflict, prompted FBI Director Christopher Wray to acknowledge the unique targeting of the Jewish community by various terrorist factions.
He underscored the disproportionate representation of Jews in religious-based hate crimes, which stressed the critical need for robust support and protection measures for this community.
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