Record-High Antisemitic Hate Crimes Reported In 2023 As Israel-Hamas War Rages On, FBI Finds

The number of reported antisemitic hate crime offenses climbed to an all-time high in 2023, with the uptick largely coinciding with the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, according to new FBI statistics released Monday.

Anti-Jewish hate crimes were up more than 50% in 2023, totaling 1,951 offenses compared to 1,257 in 2022, according to the FBI’s hate crime analysis data. Reports of antisemitism spiked in October of 2023 when Hamas launched its devastating attack on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and sparked countless pro-Gaza protests across the U.S.

The highest number of antisemitic crimes reported in 2022 happened in May with 162 total offenses, according to the report. In November of 2023, that number hit 389, the highest amount for a single month since the FBI first began reporting anti-Jewish incidents in 1991.

Overall hate crimes rose slightly in 2023 to 12,355 total reports compared to 12,186 in 2022, the data shows. Anti-Jewish incidents made up the second-largest single-bias portion of all hate crimes in 2023, only falling behind anti-black hate crimes.

College campuses in particular became a hotspot for anti-Jewish incidents, with violent protests and encampments leading to hundreds of arrests and culminating into a multitude of lawsuits over universities’ response. Harvard, New York University