Anti-Semitic incidents increased by 34% in 2021 over the previous year, new report finds

The number of antisemtic incidents in the United States in 2021 increased by 34% over the previous year, according to a new report released by the Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism. The 2,717 incidents in 2021 is the highest number recorded by the ADL since it began tracking them in 1979, the group said. 

"When it comes to antisemitic activity in America, you cannot point to any single ideology or belief system, and in many cases, we simply don't know the motivation," ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a release Tuesday. "But we do know that Jews are experiencing more antisemitic incidents than we have in this country in at least 40 years, and that's a deeply troubling indicator of larger societal fissures."

According to the yearly report, 88 cases of assault were cataloged in 2021, along with 1,776 cases of harassment and 853 cases of vandalism. None of the assaults were deadly or resulted in mass casualties, and 77 of the reported assaults were committed without the use of a deadly weapon.