After two years of dramatically increasing numbers of antisemitic incidents, the Anti-Defamation League announced on Wednesday that it recorded the highest number of physical assaults in 2025 of any of its annual audits. These attacks resulted in more than 300 victims. And for the first time since 2019, antisemitic attacks claimed lives, with three people killed last year.
In the post-Oct. 7, 2023 attacks atmosphere, antisemitism clearly continues to rage. Still, it is important to note where incidents have declined. The most dramatic drop in incidents was noted on college and university campuses, where acts of antisemitism fell from 1,694 to 583 over the course of a year. The ADL largely attributes this to the “decline of the anti-Israel encampment movement.”
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While the number of incidents recorded at anti-Israel protests declined by 67% between 2024 and 2025, the ADL still logged 856 incidents at these events. There has also been a decline in the proportion of recorded incidents that were related to bias against Israel or anti-Zionism between 2024 (58%) and 2025 (45%). However, the ADL notes that only 10% of antisemitic incidents recorded between 2020 and 2022 were related to Israel or Zionism.
I have raised the alarm about the ADL’s findings on antisemitism since the organization’s 2019 audit, when ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt referred to the 2,107 incidents, including 61 assaults, as a “rising tide of hatred.” Over the last six years, that tide has become a tsunami.
Unfortunately, 2026 is already showing signs of increasing threat. Although the attack was unsuccessful, a Dearborn, Michigan, resident, motivated by Hezbollah, rammed his truck, filled with “several jugs of flammable liquid” and $2,250 in fireworks, into West Bloomfield’s Temple Israel. The synagogue is host to an early childhood center, which was in session on March 12 when the attack occurred. Numerous other antisemitic attacks have occurred.
The ADL has created numerous mechanisms to respond to the onslaught of hate that has been leveled at Jewish communities in the U.S. since Oct. 7. But the task of responding to hate cannot fall solely on the ADL and on the Jewish community. As the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said, “Jews cannot fight antisemitism alone. The victim cannot cure the crime. The hatred cannot cure the hate. The only people who can successfully combat antisemitism are those active in the cultures that harbor it.”
It is incumbent upon Americans of all backgrounds to stand up against antisemitism. This can mean opening our arms to Jewish neighbors, or educating ourselves about historical and political facts that are often twisted by those who espouse prejudice.
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Most importantly, it means taking a clear-eyed look at where that hate can start: in the K-12 environment, where the ADL found that anti-Jewish prejudice “remained relatively stable,” with 825 antisemitic incidents reported in 2025 compared with 860 in 2024.
The work of teaching our children about the dangers of prejudice starts at home, and it must start now.
