Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States rose by about 400 percent in slightly over two weeks since war broke out in the Middle East after Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said Wednesday.
The advocacy group's data—which showed a 388 percent rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States between Oct. 7 and Oct. 23 over the prior year—comes amid monitoring by American authorities of domestic threats due to the conflict.
The ADL Center on Extremism said preliminary data showed 312 reported U.S. anti-Semitic incidents from Oct. 7 to Oct. 23, including harassment, vandalism, and assault.
About 190 of those were directly linked to the war between Israel and Hamas.
Among examples cited by ADL were alleged physical assault; violent online messages, especially on messaging platform Telegram; and rallies where "ADL found explicit or strong implicit support for Hamas and/or violence against Jews in Israel."
In the same period of 2022, ADL recorded 64 U.S. anti-Semitic incidents, of which four were linked to Israel.
Anti-Semitism was already rising in the United States before the war. Nearly 3,700 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in 2022, more than in any year since ADL began tracking the issue in 1979.
"When conflict erupts in Israel, antisemitic incidents soon follow in the U.S. and globally," said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, urging authorities to provide security and support to Jewish communities.
The U.S. Justice Department has said it is monitoring rising threats against Jews and Muslims amid the conflict. President Joe Biden has condemned anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Kieran Murray and Cynthia Osterman)