In a typical year, the numbers are the story: Jews are about 2% of Americans but have topped the FBI’s religiously motivated hate crime category “since 1991, often registering between 9-13% of overall hate [crime] totals.” This year, though, the story is why the FBI’s data so undercounted antisemitic hate crimes that Congress wants revised statistics.

Last week, the FBI reported there were 324 antisemitic hate crimes in 2021, about one-third of the year’s 1,013 religiously motivated crimes. By contrast, there were 683 antisemitic hate crimes in 2020, approximately 55% of the total. And 2019 saw 963 antisemitic hate crimes, about 63% of that pre-pandemic year’s total.