Antisemitism in the United States
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Antisemitism in the United States describes incidents of hatred, hostility, harm, prejudice or discrimination against people identifying as Jews, religiously, culturally and/or ethnically within the United States of America. It typically includes:
- Attitudes, including those of organized hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and those more widely disseminated in the population;
- Behaviors that can threaten the security of American Jews, as measured by the occurrence of specific incidents, including hate crimes; and
- Discrimination against Jews, threatening their secure status in country.
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent targets of religiously motivated hate crimes even though current numbers may be underreported, as is the case for many other targeted groups. As of 2023, the FBI calculated that antisemitic incidents accounted for 68% of all religion-based hate crimes, an increase of 63% since 2022, while the American Jewish Committee (AJC) said that figure was "likely much lower" than the actual number as hate crimes had been "widely underreported across the country." A 2025 survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, concluded that "60% of Americans ... at least somewhat agree that antisemitism is a serious problem." Twenty-four percent of Americans, however, maintained that recent antisemitic attacks were understandable.
In the past, incidents of antisemitism were mostly confined to organized antisemitic groups, mainly from a white nationalist or white supremacist backgrounds, but also including the Nation of Islam and some branches of the Black Hebrew Israelites, who have also been identified as antisemitic, reflecting heightened levels of antisemitism among some African-American communities. Over the last decade or more, however, antisemitism has been rising in the U.S., and there has been increasing evidence of antisemitism on both sides of the American political spectrum, as Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism for the U.S. Department of State highlighted in the title of remarks she gave in 2024: "From Right to Left and In Between: Jew-hatred Across the Political Divide."
In 2024, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) also summarized their latest findings on the subject in Antisemitism. On the left, they noted an increase in incidents "that began with the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that initiated the Israel-Hamas war. These incidents included vandalism of Jewish institutions and places of worship, flyering from known hate groups, and assaults on Jewish people and business." On the right, they found that "Hate groups and other bigoted actors have perpetuated the antisemitic narrative that Jewish people are helping to further the normalization and acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities in order to further social strife. Likewise, the far right argues that Jews are orchestrating a “great replacement” in which they aid the immigration of non-white people — especially those who are Muslim — into majority-white counties to challenge and erode white supremacy."
There have been a range of approaches to combating antisemitism, both by government when the Biden administration launched the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism and by Jewish communities whose tactics have included the creation of more holocaust museums. Nonetheless, incidents of antisemitism continue to rise in the U.S. and worldwide. One result, according to Gallop, is "most Jewish Americans have felt reluctant to share their religious affiliation."