New York Leads the Nation in Reported Antisemitic Incidents as Rates Climb 18% in 2024

According to new data released by ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) today, reported antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose by 18% in New York, reaching 1,437 total incidents – the highest number ever recorded by ADL in the state and the highest number recorded in any state across the country last year. This is on the heels of a record-breaking year in 2023, which saw a 110% increase from 2022. Roughly 15% of the nation’s 9,354 antisemitic incidents, and 42% of all (196) assaults, took place in New York State in 2024.

New York saw a disturbing increase from 2023’s record high of 1,218 reported antisemitic incidents and 2022’s record high of 580, marking a 148% increase from just two years ago. New York not only led the nation in the highest number of recorded antisemitic incidents, but also had the highest number of antisemitic vandalism (443 incidents) and assaults (82 assaults), and the second highest number of harassment incidents (912, only behind California with 1000). New York State also recorded the most incidents taking place at colleges and universities (289).

“ADL’s 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents indicates that the shocking spike in antisemitic incidents after October 7, 2023 has become an unfortunate reality across the country and in New York,” said Scott Richman, ADL New York/New Jersey Regional Director. “New York documented 1,437 antisemitic incidents last year – an 18% increase above the previous record set in 2023. This data confirms what Jewish communities around New York have experienced, and we must all work together to reverse this unacceptable trend.”

Major New York Findings

The Audit classified incidents into three categories:

Harassment up by 16% (912 incidents)
Vandalism up by 16% (443 incidents)
Assault up by 52% (82 incidents, after falling by 25% in 2023)

Antisemitic incidents in New York took place in a wide variety of locations:

Public Areas up by 31% (554)
Jewish Institutions down by 26% (255)
Non-Jewish K-12 Schools down by 32% (118)
Colleges and Universities up by 163% (289)
Home/Housing down by 4% (68)
Businesses up by 75% (98)

A total of 268 incidents involved the display of a Nazi swastika, representing a 1% increase from 2023 and comprising 18% of all incidents; 75% of all Non-Jewish K-12 School incidents involved swastikas in 2024.

Geographic Data

Sixty-eight percent (976) of incidents in New York State took place in the five boroughs of New York City. This included:

600 incidents of harassment
307 incidents of vandalism
69 incidents of assault
84% of the 82 total reported antisemitic assaults in New York State took place in the five boroughs of New York City.

New York County (Manhattan) led the five boroughs with 587 reported incidents, up 37% compared to 2023. The other boroughs were as follows:

Brooklyn: 253 (up by 28%)
Queens: 85 (down by 10%)
Bronx: 27 (down by 16%)
Staten Island: 24 (up by 60%)

Westchester County, north of NYC, experienced an increase of 22% in reported antisemitic incidents (72), while the other neighboring suburban counties of NYC declined as follows:

Long Island: 122 (down by 31%)
- Nassau: 60 (down by 36% from 94)
- Suffolk: 62 (down by 26% from 84)
Rockland: 33 (down by 11%)

There were 234 reported incidents in the remaining New York counties, up by 32% from 2023. During 2024, ADL tracked or responded to antisemitic incidents in only 35 of the 62 counties in New York State, indicating that underreporting is a concern.

Assaults

Assaults increased by 52% from 54 reported incidents in 2023 to 82 in 2024, making it the highest number of antisemitic assaults ever reported in New York. More antisemitic assaults took place in New York than any other state. Indeed, 42% of the total 196 antisemitic assaults nationwide took place in New York. Jews were punched in the face, hit by gel pellet guns, shoulder-checked, whacked with metal bats and stabbed with scissors to offer a few examples.

Sixty-nine antisemitic assaults were documented in New York City in 2024 (up 32% from 51 in 2023), and Orthodox Jews were targeted in 52% (36) of these incidents.

Incidents Targeting Orthodox Jews

In 2024, 93 recorded antisemitic incidents involved Orthodox Jews or those who were visibly Jewish, up from 78 in 2023. This is an increase of 19%. Examples of these incidents include:

A young man wearing a yarmulke was viciously beaten with a metal bat as he walked down a quiet street in Staten Island.
Orthodox Jewish paramedics in Rockland County responding to an injured pedestrian were confronted with an onslaught of antisemitic slurs from the patient they were trying to treat. The patient eventually requested to be treated by a non-Jewish paramedic, a request which was not fulfilled.
A visibly Jewish child in the Bronx was riding a public bus when the bus driver turned to him and said, “You best not be a f’ing Jew, are you? Get the f off of my bus.”
In upstate New York, an individual aggressively swerved his vehicle towards three Orthodox Jewish men walking down the street, while shouting antisemitic slurs and obscenities.

Nearly half of the incidents targeting Orthodox Jews took place in the borough of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn: Home to the Largest Jewish Population in the United States

From graffiti (“gas the Jews” scrawled on a subway station) to vandalism (a brick thrown through the window of an Orthodox Jewish school bus), to harassment (yarmulkes knocked off the heads of Jewish children playing on the street) and assault (a Jewish man hit with a metal pipe and called a “f’ing kike”), the streets of Brooklyn seemed to be teeming with anti-Jewish activity in 2024.

Every category ADL tracks experienced an increase in Brooklyn in 2024:

Harassment: 12% increase, from 116 reported incidents in 2023 to 130 in 2024
Vandalism: 78% increase, from 51 reported incidents in 2023 to 91 in 2024
Assault: 6% increase, from 30 reported incidents in 2023 to 32 in 2024

Some of these incidents made national headlines. For example, a man driving a vehicle in Mill Basin, Brooklyn attempted to run over yeshiva students and teachers at a Jewish institution. Disturbing surveillance footage captured him driving over the curb and onto the front lawn, as the young men scattered to escape the attack. Witnesses reported him yelling, “I’m going to kill all the Jews” as he made his attempt.

Other incidents, though they received less coverage, were no less dramatic or insidious.

A Jewish woman was sexually harassed, with her skirt lifted up and lewd comments made by a perpetrator who stated, “I want to see her a**, she’s Jewish.”
An individual yelled “Get the f out of here, Jews don’t belong here!”, and then slapped a Jewish man twice.
After noticing a mezuzah (Jewish symbol) on a doorpost, a delivery man spat on the door of a Jewish home.
A Jewish man was slashed in the face as his attacker yelled antisemitic slurs.

Alarmingly, 23% (60 of 253) of the incidents that took place throughout the borough involved children or places frequented by children, including schools and playgrounds. This is an increase from 16% (31 of 197) in 2023.

Israel and Zionism-Related Incidents

Of the 1,437 antisemitic incidents recorded in New York State in 2024, 832 involved explicit references to Israel or Zionism (around 58%). More than 45% involved picketing or gatherings with overt antisemitic messages or glorification of terrorism. Twenty-four percent (200 incidents) resulted in written or verbal harassment of Jews, such as the Israeli middle school student who received a message from a peer: “Hope the f’ing Palastinians (sic) f’ing rape you and f’n die – you ugly rat.” At an anti-Israel protest, a Jewish individual was called a “f’n murderous kike.”

References to Israel and Zionism were found across all three categories tracked by ADL’s Audit of Antisemitic Incidents: harassment, vandalism and assault. Two of these incidents involved violence against Jews. At a hostage vigil in Westchester County, an individual rammed protesters with his car. Before stabbing a Jew in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the perpetrator yelled, “Free Palestine” and asked his victim if he wanted to die.

Jewish Institutions

New York saw a 26% decrease in antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish institutions in 2024. While that is a positive development, it still is a massive 204% increase from 2022. Incidents included Jewish institutions being targeted by anti-Israel protestors who used rhetoric such as “Zionism is terrorism” and “We don’t want no Zionists here.” We also saw a number of vandalism incidents where slogans, such as “Free Palestine” or swastikas, were marked on synagogues.

2024 saw another year of bomb threats called into synagogues and other Jewish institutions. There were 91 reported bomb threats, with 31 of them occurring in October (when both Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah fell). Some bomb threats occurred on October 6, 2024, the day before the one-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel.

Educational Institutions

K-12 Schools

A total of 118 antisemitic incidents in New York’s K-12 schools in 2024 were recorded (excluding Jewish schools), a 32% decrease from the 173 incidents from 2023.

While it is encouraging that the number of reported antisemitic incidents in NY’s K-12 schools fell from last year, the total remains more than double the number from 2022 (53), which was the third year in a row to break records. It is concerning that there has not been a more dramatic reduction in the number of school-based antisemitic incidents since the surge following October 7, 2023.

The majority of reported incidents in K-12 schools involved acts of vandalism (87). The year began and ended with similar number of incidents in Q1 and Q4 (32 and 34, respectively) and it is noteworthy that the numbers increased in October 2024 during the anniversary of Hamas’ brutal attack on Israelis and other foreign nationals.

Campus

ADL saw a staggering 163% increase in antisemitic incidents on campuses in New York from 110 in 2023 to 289 in 2024. This included an increase in all of the major categories: harassment (up 192%), vandalism (up 65%), and assault (increased from 1 to 4).

It is important to note that 23% (67) of the incidents reported on all New York State campuses occurred on Columbia’s and Barnard’s campuses. Fifty-five percent (160) of campus incidents in 2024 involved protests or gatherings that explicitly used antisemitic language, such as calls to eradicate Israel, support of Hamas’s attack on 10/7, or calls for the erasure of Zionism.

ADL documented the greatest number of incidents on campus in April (55), followed by May (49). These incidents included encampments and occupation of buildings, which impacted the end of the year for college students. Schools, such as Columbia, had to cancel graduations, and finals had to be moved to Zoom or other locations (because of campus access restrictions due to protests).

Other notable incidents that occurred on college campuses in New York:

Columbia – Two students were assaulted and had their Israeli flag stolen at a protest.
University of Rochester – Wanted posters targeting Jewish and Israeli staff were plastered all over the campus.
Cornell – Dangerous rhetoric was used by a speaker at a protest who stated that they “take their cues from the armed Palestinian resistance and are in solidarity with the armed resistance in Palestine.”

Residences

In 2024, there were 68 documented antisemitic incidents at private residences in New York, representing a slight drop from 71 incidents in 2023. These incidents included:

A door camera catching someone urinating on a home while yelling antisemitic slurs.
A protest outside the Shabbat dinner of a Jewish elected official.
Two men enduring an extended campaign of harassment by their hateful neighbor who blew cigarette ash into their apartment and repeatedly kicked their door during their Shabbat dinners.
The vandalism of homes with swastikas.
Individuals receiving antisemitic phone calls and extremist flyers.

Business Establishments

Last year, antisemitic incidents at Jewish and non-Jewish owned businesses increased by nearly 70% in NY. These included:

Employees saying antisemitic tropes to Jewish customers, such as the server who was asked about a drink overcharge who responded, “You’re Jewish. You’re rich. You can afford it.”
A bookstore who wanted to cancel a Jewish author’s book launch because they would not “permit a Zionist on the premises.”
Jews wearing Stars of David in business establishments were taunted with “Heil Hitler” or “Zionism isn’t cute.”

About 67% (82) of the antisemitic incidents reported at business establishments involved written or verbal harassment, a 95% increase from last year. Eighteen incidents included swastikas.

Extremist Activity

Extremist and white supremacist groups continued to distribute propaganda to communicate their hateful messages more broadly and to recruit new members. In 2024, ADL documented 15 white supremacist propaganda distribution incidents in New York State. Their flyers and stickers were found outside of an Upper West Side movie theater (Patriot Front), and were distributed in residential neighborhoods on Long Island (Goyim Defense League) and along the Bronx River Parkway trail (Atlantic Nationalist Club) in Westchester. Their literature included swastikas, calls for racial purity wars and accusations that Jews conspire to make America “less white.”

Underreporting

As high as the numbers were in 2024, underreporting continues to be a challenge in many communities, as victims of bias crimes and antisemitic incidents – particularly those in marginalized communities – face significant barriers to reporting in the first instance. ADL continues to work with elected officials, law enforcement leaders and community members across New York to tackle these problems head-on. In 2024, ADL received reports from only 35 of 62 counties across the New York State. ADL encourages all members of the public to report incidents of antisemitism directly to ADL here: adl.org/reportincident.

Methodology

The ADL Audit includes both criminal and non-criminal acts of harassment, vandalism and assault against individuals and groups as reported to ADL by victims, law enforcement, the media and partner organizations and evaluated by ADL’s experts

The complete dataset for antisemitic incidents for 2016-2024 is available on ADL’s H.E.A.T. Map, an interactive online tool that allows users to geographically chart antisemitic incidents and extremist activity. The full dataset can also be downloaded by anyone who would like to take a closer look at individual incidents.

ADL is careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism. Legitimate political protest, support for Palestinian rights or expressions of opposition to Israeli policies is not included in the Audit. ADL’s approach to Israel-related expressions comports with the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

The complete Audit methodology is included in the report on our website.

The Audit offers a snapshot of one of the ways American Jews encounter antisemitism, but a full understanding of antisemitism in the U.S. requires other forms of analysis as well, including public opinion polling, assessments of online antisemitism and examinations of extremist activity, all of which ADL offers in other reports, such as: ADL Survey of Antisemitic Attitudes in America 2024, Campus Antisemitism One Year After the Hamas Terrorist Attacks, the ADL Global 100: Index of Antisemitism, Online Hate and Harassment: The American Experience and White Supremacist Propaganda Assessment Focused on Jews and Immigrants in 2024.