Anti-Semitism in New York

This year, hate crimes against Jews have risen by 8.5 per cent in New York City, according to the Police Department, against a backdrop of high levels of anti-Semitism worldwide following the attacks on 7 October in Israel. New York, which has the largest Jewish community of any city outside Israel, recorded 205 anti-Semitic hate crimes in the first seven months of 2026, compared with 189 in the same period of 2025. According to the New York Police Department, more than half of all hate crimes committed in the city were directed against Jews, even though New York’s Jewish population accounts for only 10 per cent of the city’s total population. Although the overall number of hate crimes has risen, the city has seen a decline in most of the most serious offences, such as shootings and homicides.

Although anti-Semitic incidents declined overall in the United States in 2025 after reaching a record high in 2024, they have remained at high levels since 2021, according to a recent report by the Anti-Defamation League. Since Mayor Zohran Mamdani took office this year, some New York Jews have expressed concern that his harsh criticism of Israel has made them feel less safe in their own city: these fears have intensified in recent weeks, after the mayor called for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, a few days later, a Jewish man was stabbed in Manhattan in what appears to be a hate crime. As Mamdani himself admitted, the mayor of New York does not have the power to arrest a foreign leader visiting the city, but his political manoeuvre has further inflamed a city and a country in which a new, unusual contempt for Israel is spreading. Everyone says it’s just about Netanyahu and his policies, but history teaches us time and again that it’s never just one Jew – it’s all of them.