Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee during Thursday’s debate noted that there are far more hate crimes against Jews in the U.S. than there are against Muslims — and he’s absolutely right.
Though the media and many political figures have focused the nation’s attention on anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S., according to FBI hate crime statistics, Jews are targeted far more than Muslims, both in absolute terms and proportionately.
In 2014, the FBI reported 1,092 hate crimes based on religious bias — 58 percent of those crimes were against Jews, compared with 16 percent that were against Muslims.
There are about 3.3 million Muslims and 5.8 million Jews in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center.
That means there are 1.76 times as many Jews than Muslims in the U.S., but 3.6 times as many hate crimes are directed against Jews.
