There were 1,879 anti-Semitic incidents in 2018, representing the third-highest figure of such incidents since 1979, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League released on Tuesday.
The highest number of anti-Semitic incidents was in 1994 with the second highest in 2017.
Though the 2018 number is 107 incidents less than the previous year, anti-Semitic assaults more than doubled, from 17 to 39.
The vast majority of the incidents in 2018 were vandalism or harassment: 774 and 1,066, respectively.
The report’s release comes in the aftermath of a Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue in Southern California that was attacked during Shabbat-morning services by a 19-year-old gunman, John Earnest.
“We’ve worked hard to push back against anti-Semitism, and succeeded in improving hate crime laws, and yet we continue to experience an alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts,” ADL national director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Tuesday. “We unfortunately saw this trend continue into 2019 with the tragic shooting at the Chabad synagogue in Poway.”
There, Earnest killed 60-year-old congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye and injured three others, including the synagogue’s rabbi, 57-year-old Yisroel Goldstein, who lost his right index finger, and an 8-year-old girl who was hit by shrapnel.
This latest act of terror came six months to the day when 11 people were killed at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, the deadliest attack in American Jewish history.
