NEW YORK – In a significant development, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a notable decrease in antisemitic incidents across the United States for 2025, marking the first decline in five years. This reduction is largely attributed to a substantial drop in occurrences on college campuses, according to the ADL.
In 2024, the ADL recorded 1,694 antisemitic incidents on U.S. college campuses, a surge fueled by pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist student protests linked to the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza. However, in 2025, that number plummeted by 66% to just 583 incidents, as colleges and universities, responding to pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration, implemented measures to curtail such demonstrations.
This significant reduction in campus-related incidents was a key factor in the ADL’s latest annual report, released on Wednesday. The report documented a total of 6,274 cases of antisemitic assaults, harassment, and vandalism across the country in 2025. This marks a 33% decrease from the 9,354 incidents reported in 2024, a year that saw record-high numbers.
New York, California, and New Jersey emerged as the states with the highest numbers of antisemitic incidents in 2025, with 1,160, 817, and 687 cases respectively, according to the ADL.
The ADL’s approach to counting these incidents has sparked a heated debate among American Jews and others, revolving around whether strong criticism of Israeli policies and Zionism should be classified as antisemitic. Some critics argue that the ADL’s criteria are overly inclusive.
2025 incidents included 3 killings, record number of assaults
Despite the decrease in total incidents, the ADL’s national director and CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said 2025 “was one of the most violent years for American Jews,” with a record-high 203 incidents of physical assault tallied in the audit.
“Numbers that would have shocked us five years ago are now our floor,” Greenblatt said. “People are being murdered because of antisemitism on American soil, and thousands more are threatened.”
Greenblatt was referring to the two Jewish people killed in a May 21 shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., and the 82-year-old Jewish woman who died from injuries sustained in a June 1 firebombing attack at an event in Boulder, Colorado, aimed at raising awareness of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Campuses are under scrutiny from groups with varying views
In the ADL’s report for 2024, antisemitic incidents related to Israel or Zionism accounted for 58% of the total, marking the first time since the annual audit began in 1979 that more than half the incidents fit this category. The change arose from widespread opposition to Israel’s intensive military operation in Gaza that was launched after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In 2025, 45% of all antisemitic incidents were related to Israel or Zionism. The ADL said anti-Israel rallies featuring “extreme anti-Israel rhetoric that crossed the line into antisemitism” decreased significantly — by 67% overall and by 83% on college campuses.
Starting in 2024, the ADL launched a Campus Antisemitism Report Card, assigning grades reflecting its assessment of how colleges address antisemitism and whether they adopt ADL-recommended policies. Seeking to raise pressure on colleges, the ADL filed several lawsuits and — in cooperation with two other Jewish organizations — reached a settlement in a complaint against Pomona College.
“We welcome any decrease in antisemitic incidents on college campuses or in other settings. It is indisputably a good thing, and we hope this is just the beginning of a downward trend,” Greenblatt told The Associated Press via email.
“Yet, let me be very clear: this is not a moment for relief or complacency. Yes, ADL recorded a 66% decline of antisemitic incidents on college campuses in 2025. But here is the critical context: campus incidents in 2025 are still nearly four times higher than they were in 2021.”
In its new report, the ADL says it is “careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism.” But there are gray areas. For example, the ADL contends that vilification of Zionism — the movement to establish and protect a Jewish state in Israel — is a form of antisemitism, yet some Jews are among the critics of Zionism and of the ADL itself.
The ADL’s approach “emerges from their genuine concern that anti-Zionism is a genuine threat to the safety and security of American Jews,” said antisemitism expert Aryeh Tuchman. “There are a lot of people who would disagree with that. … It’s important that there be room for multiple approaches.”
Tuchman formerly led the ADL’s Center on Extremism, the group behind the annual audit, and now is director of the Nexus Center for Antisemitism at the Nexus Project, a watchdog group that promotes a more nuanced definition of antisemitism than the ADL uses.
Responding to the pressure on colleges from the ADL and Trump administration, the Council on American-Islamic Relations launched an “Unhostile Campus Campaign” aimed at ensuring that pro-Palestinian students, faculty, and staff enjoy free speech and academic freedom and are not penalized for their viewpoints.
Schools rated “most hostile” in CAIR’s latest report were Columbia University, the City University of New York, and the University of Michigan.
Worries about antisemitism deepen in Britain and Australia
The new ADL report surfaces amid growing concern about antisemitism elsewhere in the world.
In Britain, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said tougher action is needed against people chanting certain phrases at pro-Palestinian protests, as concerns grew over the safety of British Jews after the stabbings of two Jewish men in London.
The stabbings were the latest in a string of incidents, including recent arson attacks on synagogues and other Jewish sites in London. The U.K.’s senior police officer said British Jews are facing their greatest ever threat, and blamed social media for making antisemitism more mainstream.
— In Australia, a wide-ranging inquiry commission examining antisemitism after a massacre at a Hanukkah celebration heard this week from Jews who said escalating hatred has left them fearful and vulnerable. Fifteen people were killed when two gunmen opened fire at the celebration on Bondi Beach in December. The Commission says there has been a sharp rise in antisemitic incidents nationwide since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023.
— According to a recent study by Tel Aviv University, the total of 20 deaths in Australia, Britain and the United States made 2025 the deadliest year for antisemitic attacks since 1994. That’s when the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina killed 85 people.
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