JNS reported on Monday that from Jan. 1, 2023 until Jan. 31 of this year, Jews have been targets of 9.1% of hate crimes in Seattle. On Tuesday, the city released its crime statistics from Jan. 1 until July 31 of this year, and the picture became considerably more dire—more than 115% worse—for Seattle Jews.
Of the 66 hate crimes that Seattle recorded in the first seven months of this year, 13 (19.7%) have targeted Jews.
Jews make up about 1% of those who live in the Seattle metro area, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study.
Asked about the newly released official data, which suggests that anti-Jewish hate crimes accounted for almost double the percentage of overall hate crimes under the tenure of Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson compared to the prior three years, a spokesman for the mayor referred JNS back to things that Wilson told JNS prior to the new data being released.
JNS asked the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle what it made of almost 20% of hate crimes in Seattle targeting Jews under the mayorship of Wilson, who has accused Israel of “genocide.”
The Jewish community “needs elected, civic and communal leaders to fully condemn this increase and do everything in their power to take meaningful action to ensure that Jews, and all people, can live without fear of targeted hate,” Solly Kane, president and CEO of the Seattle Federation, told JNS.
“The rise in hate crimes and bias incidents targeting Jews is alarming but not surprising,” he told JNS. “We know that antisemitism and anti-Jewish hate speech have escalated precipitously in the United States to historic levels. When rhetoric against Jews is tolerated and normalized in society, it leads to bias incidents, hate crimes and violence.”
From January to end of July, 7.2% of all of the 511 hate crimes, crimes with what Seattle calls “bias elements” and non-crimes that involve bias which the city has recorded targeted Jews, according to official city data.
Of the 259 crimes with “bias elements,” which the city uses to refer to crimes in which the bias is a secondary motivation, in Seattle so far this year, 11 (4.2%) targeted Jews, and 13 (7%) of the 186 bias incidents have targeted Jews, Seattle data suggests.
Official Seattle statistics indicate that conditions are less dangerous for Arabs and Muslims in the city. According to Pew data, Muslims make up 2% of the Seattle area, or about twice the Jewish population.
In the first seven months of 2026, 23 (4.5%) incidents in all three categories have targeted Arabs and Muslims, including five (7.6%) hate crimes, nine (3.5%) crimes with bias elements and nine (4.8%) bias incidents.
That data suggests that a Jew is 420% more likely than an Arab or Muslim in Seattle to be the victim of a hate crime. Jews were about 144% likelier to be victims of crimes with bias elements and almost 189% more likely to be targeted in a bias incident than were Arabs or Muslims in the city.
Ariel Novick, Pacific Northwest regional director at the Anti-Defamation League, told JNS that “the disproportionate targeting of Jews in Seattle reflects a national crisis.”
“The FBI recorded a record high of nearly 2,000 anti-Jewish hate crime incidents in 2024, the highest number since it began tracking data in 1991,” she said. “ADL documented 107 antisemitic incidents in Seattle in 2025, including five physical assaults, up from just one in 2024 and zero in 2023.”
“When antisemitic rhetoric goes unchallenged, it creates the conditions for violence and harassment,” Novick told JNS. “To make sure everyone understands the size and scale of the issue, we ask that anyone who sees antisemitism speaks up and reports it.”
