On Nov. 10, 2024, Michael Chelst was notified of property damage at his kosher restaurant in Northwest Washington. He was met with shattered windows while none of the other restaurants next to his were vandalized.
This incident occurred on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, when the Nazis ordered violent antisemitic attacks on Jews and their homes, synagogues and businesses.
Chelst speculated that this act of vandalism was “motivated by hate or bias,” due to the timing of when the crime occurred, but shortly after D.C. police issued a statement saying “at this point there is no information or evidence that this offense was motivated by hate or bias,” according to The Washington Post.
Thousands of antisemitic incidents have occurred across the United States since the attack on Israel from the terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a non-profit organization that fights antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination, tracked more antisemitic incidents in 2023 than in the previous three years combined, setting a new record since they began tracking in 1979.
The ADL must wait until after the close of 2024 to release its annual audit, but preliminary data points to a troubling trend of an increase in attacks.
“What we have seen so far is a terrifying pattern of antisemitic attacks that we have been seeing impact our communities here,” Meredith Weisel, the regional director for the ADL’s Washington, D.C. Regional Office, said.
From Oct. 7, 2023 to Oct. 7 2024, the ADL has recorded over 10,000 incidents, which is the highest number of incidents recorded in a single year period, according to Weisel.
Weisel told CNS that there have been approximately 8,000 cases of harassment, about 1,840 acts of vandalism and over 150 assaults within a year from Oct 7. 2023.
Antisemitic incidents skyrocketed following the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to the audit data, out of the 8,873 recorded incidents in 2023, almost 60% occurred between Oct. 7 and Dec. 31, 2023.
“Antisemitism is not just a Jewish problem. It is a problem for everybody, because we should not be tolerating these types of incidents, and unfortunately, it’s become very mainstream right now,” Weisel said.
Weisel noted that many of the incidents that occurred following the attacks were in reference to Israel and Zionism. In 2022, the ADL tracked 241 antisemitic incidents that included references to Israel or Zionism, making up 7% of the total. In comparison, the ADL tracked 3,162 antisemitic incidents that included these references in 2023, constituting 36% of the incident total.
According to the ADL audit, the majority of incident categories increased following the attack. Vandalism and harassment, in particular, showed major increases from 2022 to 2023.
From Oct 7. 2023 to Dec 31. 2023, vandalism increased by over 350% from the same time period in 2022. Harassment shot up 800% and assault over 200%.
According to Weisel, Maryland was ranked seventh in the country when it came to the number of antisemitic incidents that occurred in 2023.
“That is certainly alarming, you know, being in the top ten,” Weisel said.
In Maryland, experts have seen “an explosion” of antisemitic incidents following Oct. 7, according to Guila Franklin Siegel, the chief operating officer at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington (JCRC). The JCRC responded to well over 150 separate antisemitic incidents from Oct. 8, 2023 through the end of the academic year in June 2024.
But what JCRC has seen may just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to antisemitic incidents in Maryland. In late April 2024, The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), a pro-Isreal non-profit organization, filed a civil rights complaint against Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), alleging severe, persistent and pervasive antisemitism in the schools that district officials have failed to address, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Siegel noted that the JCRC and the American Jewish Committee are working closely with Montgomery College and MCPS to combat antisemitism in the county. She emphasized that along with MCPS, any school must have strong updated policies and procedures for dealing with violations of code of conduct, along with sophisticated training of educators.
“Often, hatred doesn’t remain consistent in how it manifests, and there are explicit manifestations of hatred and there are also implicit manifestations of antisemitism… many educators just aren’t familiar with the implicit antisemitism that can be manifested in school settings,” Siegel said.
Antisemitism has also dramatically increased due to social media.
“The minute Oct. 7 happened, antisemitism started spiking in the US, even before Israel had taken any military action against Hamas,” said Siegel.
As organizations such as the ADL and JCRC continue to track antisemitic incidents, they are simultaneously working on different ways to combat the continuous increase in this trend.
The ADL plans to continue working with elected officials at all branches of government, specifically at the municipal level where they hope to push ordinances “that will counter the tactics of hate” such as hateful banners and flyers, according to Weisel. The ADL also launched a new center on their website to counter antisemitism in educational spaces.
“We have to change the narrative of antisemitism,” Weisel said. “We have to educate people about antisemitism so others understand. The more people that recognize it the more that people will be willing to speak up about it.”