Antisemitic incidents occur across the US practically every day.
Some noted examples include:
Physical violence, including the deadly shooting at a Jewish market in Jersey City; the stabbing of five people at a Rabbi’s home in Munsey, NY; the deadly shooting attack at the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, and many other individual assaults
Vandalism, harm, or damage to property such as spraying swastikas and antisemitic graffiti on synagogues, Jewish centers, and tombstones across the country. In 2020 alone – over 2,000 such incidents were reported to the ADL. Many more were never reported.
When does an antisemitic act constitute a hate crime?
A hate-based incident describes a hostile expression that may be motivated by another person’s race, color, disability, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity. An antisemitic incident then describes any such expression against a Jewish person or persons.
- Examples can include name-calling, making crude jokes, or creating derogatory images or drawings.
A hate crime is when such bias is part of one’s reason or motivation for committing a crime. The FBI has defined hate crimes as “criminal offenses against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”
- Examples may include violent offenses such as assaulting someone on the street, spraying graffiti, or even torching a person’s or organization’s property, as well as threatening to commit such acts based on one’s perceived protected class.
As stated by the US Department of Justice, hate crimes have a broader impact than most other kinds of crime. Hate crime victims include not only the crime’s immediate target as they may also affect others like one’s family, their community, and at times, the entire nation.
Most states also have their own hate crime laws that may or may not vary from federal statutes.
You can find an up-to-date listing of antisemitic incidents and hate crimes on ADL’s online tracker.