U.S. antisemitic incidents hit record high in 2022, ADL report says

2/2 © Reuters. People wearing antisemitism and nazi symbols argue with conservatives during a protest outside the Tampa Convention Center where the Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) Student Action Summit (SAS) is held, in Tampa, Florida, U.S. July 23, 2022. REUTERS/Marco B 2/2

By Brendan O'Brien

(Reuters) - More than 3,600 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the United States in 2022, more than in any year since the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) began tracking the issue in 1979, it said in its annual report released on Thursday.

It was the third time in the last five years that antisemitic incidents reached all-time highs, the ADL said.

Acts of harassment, vandalism and assault directed specifically at Jews took place in nearly every corner of the country, it said.

In January, a gunman took three congregants and a rabbi hostage for more than 10 hours at a Texas synagogue. Four months later, a Hasidic Jewish school bus driver was shot with a BB gun in New York City. In September, a congregant was punched leaving a Portland, Oregon, synagogue.

The report "documents alarmingly high levels of antisemitism in the United States, which requires a concerted whole-of-government, whole-of-society response," the ADL said, adding the 2022 number of incidents rose by more than a third over 2021.

The number of incidents involving organized white supremacist propaganda activity doubled, incidents at K-12 schools increased by 49% and by two-fifths on college campuses in 2022, the organization found.

Attacks on Orthodox Jews rose by 69%, while bomb threats against Jewish institutions increased by eight to 91.

The White House addressed rising antisemitism in a roundtable event with Jewish leaders in December, and President Joe Biden established an inter-agency group to coordinate efforts to counter antisemitism.

The rise in antisemitic incidents corresponds with what the ADL has called an increase in antisemitic attitudes in the U.S.

According to an ADL report in January, a fifth of Americans now believe in six or more antisemitic tropes, almost twice as many as in 2019. The survey asked respondents to rate the truthfulness of 14 statements describing different traditional anti-Jewish tropes including "Jews have too much power" in the business world and on Wall Street.

"The dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in 2022 cannot be attributed to any one cause or ideology," the ADL said.

The issue of antisemitism drew public attention in November when Republican former President Donald Trump hosted white supremacist Nick Fuentes and the musician formerly known as Kanye West at his private club in Florida.

West, now called Ye, drew widespread criticism for a spate of antisemitic comments.

In October, Ye posted on Twitter that he was not antisemitic and said, "You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda." The post was removed by Twitter and his account locked.

Trump said in a message on his Truth Social media site that he and Ye "got along great, he expressed no anti-Semitism, & I appreciated all of the nice things he said about me on 'Tucker Carlson.'

"Why wouldn't I agree to meet? Also, I didn't know Nick Fuentes," Trump wrote.