Anti-Semitic incidents neared record highs in New York in 2019 and broke records in New Jersey, amid a broad nationwide spike in verbal and physical attacks targeting Jewish people, the Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday.
Nationally, the ADL said it recorded 2,107 anti-Semitic incidents last year, the most ever in 40 years of tracking such data. New York and New Jersey accounted for more than one-third of the national tally.
In New York the ADL documented a 26 percent increase in total incidents -- vandalism, harassment and assault -- versus the year prior.
That included 35 assaults statewide, 25 of which happened in Brooklyn -- including eight assaults in eight days last December. The number of assaults statewide was double the year prior and triple the count from 2017.
“The antisemitic violence we observed in 2019, not only here in New York but also around the country, is absolutely devastating,” Alexander Rosemberg, deputy regional director of the ADL's New York/New Jersey region, said in a statement.
While New York was first in the country for incidents last year, New Jersey was a close second, with a state record of 345 total. That included five assaults, among them the deadly attack on a Jersey City kosher supermarket.
The ADL particularly noted a 54 percent increase in incidents in K-12 schools in the state last year, which far outpaced a 19 percent increase in schools nationwide.
