219 incidents of antisemitism took place in U.S. colleges and universities in 2022. That included a 41% increase in antisemitic incidents involving vandalism, assault, and harassment in 2022, according to a March report by the Anti-Defamation League. Its “audit” tracked acts of “harassment, vandalism and assault targeting Jewish people and communities.”
Antisemitic incidents off campus rose by about a third. “In 2022, ADL tabulated 3,697 antisemitic incidents throughout the United States,” says the audit’s executive summary. “This is a 36% increase from the 2,717 incidents tabulated in 2021 and the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979. “This is the third time in the past five years that the year-end total has been the highest number ever recorded.”
Several antisemitic incidents were reported recently at Stanford University in California. Antisemitic graffiti was placed on the door of a Jewish Stanford undergrad on March 10, the latest in a rash of antisemitic incidents at Stanford. That act was the third publicized antisemitic act in two weeks at Stanford, and the fourth this quarter, says the Stanford Protected Identity Harm Reporting website.
The ADL audit says “incidents increased in each of the major Audit categories: antisemitic harassment increased 29% to 2,298; antisemitic vandalism increased 51% to 1,288 and antisemitic assaults increased 26% to 111. The dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in 2022 in almost all categories cannot be attributed to any one cause or ideology.”
241 of the incidents included “references to Israel or Zionism,” while “there were 589 incidents logged at Jewish institutions such as synagogues, Jewish community centers and Jewish schools, an increase of 12 percent from 2021.”
The rise in campus antisemitism is part of larger pattern, the ADL says
This escalation in antisemitic incidents comes just as ADL has reported on Americans’ highest level of antisemitic attitudes in decades. According to ADL’s 2023 report Antisemitic Attitudes in America, 20% of Americans believe six or more antisemitic tropes, which is significantly more than the 11% that ADL found in 2019. Although a causal link between antisemitic attitudes and antisemitic activity has not been proven, it would not be surprising if some antisemites have become emboldened to act on their hatred in the current environment.
“This dramatic increase also occurs just as the FBI released its 2021 hate crime data (a year behind this report) showing that Jews remain the single most targeted religious minority in America,” says the ADL audit’s executive summary. The federal Justice Department says that 51.4% of all religion-related hate crimes were anti-Semitic incidents in 2021.
