Anti-Semitic attacks, vandalism in U.S. reached record high in 2021, ADL report says

April 26 (UPI) -- There were close to 3,000 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States in 2021, a Jewish civil rights organization said in a report Tuesday -- a total that was higher than any other year and seemed to spike during an Israeli bombing campaign in the Middle East a year ago.

The Anti-Defamation League said in its assessment that reported incidents of assaults, harassment and vandalism against Jewish people and communities totaled just over 2,700 last year. That's the highest tally for incidents in a single year since the organization began tracking them in 1979.

The annual audit found that the incidents occurred in all 50 states on an average of about seven per day.

"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 Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.

"But we do know that Jews are experiencing more anti-Semitic incidents than we have in this country in at least 40 years, and that's a deeply troubling indicator of larger societal fissures."

A Palestinian man sits on his destroyed home in Beit Lahia, North Gaza, on May 31, 2021, following days of Israeli bombings that targeted Hamas. File Photo by Ismael Mohamad/UPI

The ADL report noted a rise in anti-Semitic attacks last May after Israel launched an 11-day bombing campaign against Hamas targets in Gaza. In fact, May was the month with the most reported incidents -- close to 400. Compared to the previous May, it was a 148% increase.

"The violence we witnessed in America during the conflict last May was shocking," Greenblatt added. "Jews were being attacked in the streets for no other reason than the fact that they were Jewish, and it seemed as if the working assumption was that if you were Jewish, you were blameworthy for what was happening half a world away."

Among all the reported incidents in 2021, the organization noted a 61% rise in attacks that targeted Jewish synagogues and community centers and a 106% increase in elementary. middle and high schools. Attacks on college campuses rose 21%.

Tuesday's report noted a 43% rise in harassment and 14% in vandalism. Of the roughly 850 incidents of vandalism, the assessment said about two-thirds included a swastika -- a symbol of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Almost a fifth of the incidents of vandalism were created by domestic extremists, it noted.

The ADL report said that the most anti-Semitic incidents reported last year were in New York (416), New Jersey (370) and California (367).