Antisemitic Assaults Hit 46-Year High in US, Brooklyn Claims Grim Share of Spike

Despite a modest dip in overall antisemitic incidents, New York City remains grimly central to a surge in violent attacks against Jewish residents, raising far-reaching questions about urban safety, social cohesion, and the limits of official responses to hate.

On a mild evening last June in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighbourhood, a passerby hurled a bottle at a visibly Orthodox man, cursing him in thunderous tones. It was not, it turns out, an isolated outburst. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), New York State accounted for a staggering 44% of all documented violent antisemitic assaults in America in 2025—the lion’s share of what was already a record-breaking year for such attacks.

The ADL’s annual audit, published Wednesday, details a sobering spike: the number of violent assaults targeting Jewish victims nationwide reached its highest since the organisation began keeping track in 1979—a tally whose longevity does little to comfort those facing growing threats on city streets. New York State saw assaults edge up nearly 10%, from 82 to 90. Brooklyn, home to America’s densest Jewish population, bore a disproportionate brunt. Incidents in the borough leapt to 278, a 10% rise from 2024, with violent assaults rising from 32 to 50. The figure is not merely a statistic: it represents one in four antisemitic assaults recorded in the entire country.

Elsewhere in the city, the signals were mixed but hardly reassuring. The broader measure of antisemitic incidents—including harassment, vandalism and physical assault—did fall in New York by 19% in 2025, echoing a 33% national decline. Yet this moderation follows an unprecedented spike after the Hamas attacks of October 7th 2023, and the backlash that followed. The Empire State’s 1,160 incidents last year remain double that logged before the Gaza crisis shook the world’s headlines, suggesting that the “decline” is only relative to an already inflated—and deeply worrying—baseline.

What accounts for Brooklyn’s especially grim statistics? The data point to a pattern: attacks targeting Orthodox Jews identified by their distinctive garb soared by 39%, from 38 incidents in 2024 to 53 in 2025. Jewish-owned businesses, too, found themselves under siege: incidents jumped from 23 to 40. For many residents, antisemitism is a fear that walks the pavement with them, lurking between the unremarkable errands of daily city life.

The ADL’s Scott Richman strikes a note that is at once hopeful and grave: the recent downtick marks the first reversal of an upward march that has persisted since 2021, but “much work remains.” New York’s putative progress, he reckons, is cold comfort when victimisation is twice as common as it was only a handful of years ago, and the spectre of violence looms in familiar neighbourhoods.

For city officials and police, the picture is a headache with few easy salves. Traditional modes of reassurance—beefed-up patrols, community dialogues, and restorative-justice initiatives—have proved spotty in their effects. The New York Police Department routinely reports stepped-up presence around synagogues and yeshivas after high-profile incidents; yet, as the ADL’s statistics suggest, deterrence appears painfully limited.

A grim national benchmark

New York’s struggles, though acute, do not play out in a vacuum. 2025 saw the first antisemitic fatalities in America in three years, as violence spread beyond the metropolis. Two Israeli diplomats were gunned down outside Washington, D.C.’s Capital Jewish Museum in May, while an activist succumbed to injuries after a firebombing at a solidarity event in Boulder, Colorado. Incendiary acts, like the arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s residence, punctuate a new, nastier phase of American hate—fueled by polarisation and digital echo chambers.

If there is a sliver of solace, it is that, nationwide, non-violent incidents—harassment, graffiti, vandalism—dropped from their post-2023 peak. However, the rising use of deadly weapons (up by 39%) signals a shift towards more lethal forms of bigotry. The American experience is not unique: across Western Europe, from Paris to Berlin, antisemitic violence has likewise tracked with international crises and the febrile rhetoric they stoke online. But the scale of New York’s figures is unusual for a city that long styled itself as the world’s capital of tolerance.

Economically, the toll is quietly corrosive. Security upgrades for synagogues, schools and shops siphon millions of private and public dollars each year—funds that could otherwise build the kind of communal infrastructure New York prides itself on. Jewish-owned businesses in Brooklyn and beyond face not only property damage but also the slower, subtler drag of fear on commerce: when employees dread their commute, or patrons avoid a store after a hate-fueled incident, the city’s vaunted “miracle mile” of immigrant entrepreneurship starts to look a little bleaker.

Politically, these attacks test New York’s claims to pluralism and citywide harmony. Faith leaders and city officials, eager to signal unity, have issued anodyne statements. But as each grim statistic follows another onto the newswire, public confidence in authorities’ ability—or will—to stem the tide is wearing thin. With elections on the horizon and the city’s Jews a crucial (if divided) voting bloc, it is clear that the issue will not subside quietly.

What to make of the moment? A sceptically optimistic reading might take heart in the downward tilt of the overall numbers and the energy many civic groups have devoted to interfaith solidarity and education. But it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the city, and its policymakers, have yet to grapple with the stubborn durability—and evolving forms—of antisemitism in its midst.

Bigotry, as ever, adapts to the landscape it inhabits. Social media, for all its virtues, serves as a turbocharger for hate, enabling lone cranks and organised cells alike to reach vast audiences at the click of a mouse. New York, by virtue of its size and diversity, finds itself both more resilient—and more exposed—than smaller communities elsewhere.

It would be premature to ring the bells of despair, but unwarranted to indulge in naïve optimism. History admonishes that spikes in hate, left unchecked, rarely dissipate on their own. It will take a sturdier mix of data-driven policing, relentless educational outreach, and perhaps a dash more political courage than the city has lately shown to translate this modest statistical break into lasting safety for all its residents.

As New York’s streets pulse with their usual din, one truth endures: the freedom to live unmolested in one’s own neighbourhood, regardless of garb or ancestry, marks the real measure of urban civility. We reckon the city can still aspire to more than the mere absence of massacre—but that bar, puny as it is, now seems again in peril. ■