Antisemitism surged worldwide in 2023, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, according to a new report.

The new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Tel Aviv University found that there was an increase in antisemitic incidents in Western countries in 2023 when compared to the previous year, including a “steep” jump in incidents following the October attack on Israel.

The report said that the ADL recorded 7,523 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. in 2023 compared to 3,697 in 2022. It also noted significant increases in incidents in large U.S. cities, including New York City and Los Angeles.

The report said the New York Police Department recorded 325 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 — up from the 261 recorded in 2022. The Los Angeles Police Department recorded 165 incidents in 2023 compared to 86 incidents in 2022, according to the report.

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Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s CEO and national director, said the attack on Israel “was followed by a tsunami of hate against Jewish communities worldwide.”

“This year’s report is incredibly alarming, with documented unprecedented levels of antisemitism, including in the US, where 2023 saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the US ever recorded by ADL,” he said in a statement.

There was also a rise in antisemitic incidents in other countries, including France, the United Kingdom and Germany. France had 1,676 incidents last year, up significantly from the 436 recorded in 2022, according to the report.

The report also noted that most countries with large Jewish populations saw increases in antisemitic incidents even before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

“Particularly alarming is that also in the nine months leading to October 2023, in which no exceptional event happened, most countries with significant Jewish populations saw a rise in the number of antisemitic incidents compared to the same period in 2022, including the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Brazil, and Mexico,” the report states.

“This means that the war in Gaza helped spread a fire that was already out of control,” the report added.

The number of anti-Muslim complaints in the U.S. also increased in 2023, according to an annual report from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released last month. The report said it recorded 8,061 complaints of anti-Muslim incidents, surpassing the previous record in 2021 when 6,720 incidents were reported.

Antisemitism has proliferated worldwide, new report released on Holocaust Remembrance Day says

As the world commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day, a new report highlights the lingering disease of antisemitism around the world.

The Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report, published by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), indicates an increase of dozens of percentage points in the number of antisemitic incidents in Western countries between 2022 and 2023.

Antisemitic incidents spiked dramatically after Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel and killed around 1,200 people and took around 240 others hostage. But the trend was already well underway in the first nine months of 2023, according to the report.

The report’s authors write that Oct. 7 "helped spread a fire that was already out of control."

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In total, the ADL recorded more than 7,500 incidents in the U.S. in 2023 – up from nearly 3,700 incidents in 2022. Applying a broader definition, the report recorded nearly 8,900 incidents.

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Similar trends were seen across other western countries with significant Jewish population. France, for instance, saw incidents increase from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023. Germany saw incidents increase from 2,639 to 3,614 over the same time period.

The report’s release comes on the heels of weeks of nationwide campus protests over Israel’s now seven-month war in Gaza, that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians. Protesters insist that their message is aimed at the state of Israel, but many Jewish students on campuses have said these demonstrations have leaned into incidents of outright antisemitism.

President Biden addressed the ongoing protests last week, decrying both antisemitism and Islamophobia as forms of hate speech.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), meanwhile, has recorded a similar spike in incidents of "Anti-Muslim Hate." The group recorded more than 8,061 complaints nationwide in 2023 – the highest number it ever recorded in its 30-year history. Nearly half of those were in the final three months of 2023.

Those figures represented a 56% increase over 2022. CAIR has blamed this spike in Islamophobia on the escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza after October 2023.

'Incredibly strong': Palm Beach County's Jewish community rallies as antisemitic acts rise

Concerns about the safety of local Jewish communities have increased as reports of antisemitic acts across Palm Beach County have risen in recent years.

A 2023 survey by the American Jewish Committee showed that nearly half of Jewish Americans have altered their behavior over the past year, fearing harassment and reprisals for public displays of their faith.

While the acts of antisemitism have raised concerns, they also have inspired the local Jewish community to rally together, said Melissa Arden, chief planning officer for the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County.

"We've definitely heard increased concerns about wearing Jewish stars in public, or (people asking things like) 'Should I take my mezuzah down?' " Arden said, referring to a piece of parchment with Hebrew verses from the Torah that people attach to doorposts.

"But I have to say that in Palm Beach County, we have an incredibly strong community, and we've had even more of an increase of folks who are seeking out the Jewish community," she added, "and to show their pride and to be with the Jewish community during this time."

Arden noted that a recent Purim carnival gathering at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Palm Beach Gardens drew more than 2,000 people.

As recently as 2023, officials have estimated that about 12 percent of Palm Beach County's population is Jewish. Last year, the Jewish Federation voted to start the Palm Beach County Center to Combat Antisemitism & Hatred. It recently organized a visit to Israel of leaders from local non-Jewish communities.

"Combatting antisemitism is not an issue just for the Jewish community to address," Michael Hoffman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation said in an April interview with The Palm Beach Post. "We need allies in the greater community representing all faiths, all ethnic groups, elected officials, faith leaders (and) law enforcement."

ADL report: Palm Beach County topped Florida in 2023 antisemitic incidents

A recent audit by the Anti-Defamation League showed that Palm Beach County had the highest number of reported acts of antisemitism in Florida last year, with 84 incidents.

Bomb threats against Jewish institutions, the distribution of extremist literature in residential communities and acts of vandalism were contributing factors, the ADL report said. Florida had the fourth-highest number of reported incidents last year among all states.

A recent showed that Jewish Americans across various states have expressed fear and frustration amid a widely reported surge in antisemitism.

Ted Deutch, a former U.S. congressman from Boca Raton who now serves as CEO of the American Jewish Committee, said many Jewish Americans are taking added precautions in their daily activities, including limiting posts on social media and altering what they wear and where they go in public for fear of being harassed or intimated.

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He said the organization's own survey showed that 63 percent of Jewish Americans said the status of Jews in the U.S. is less secure, and that 46 percent have altered their behavior out of fear of antisemitism.

"That's something that should be alarming to the community as a whole," Deutch said. "What we've seen these last few months on college campuses is further evidence of that.

"What happens around the rest of the country impacts what happens in Palm Beach County, because there are so many young people from Palm Beach County who attend colleges all across the states."

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt cited the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel by Hamas and the ensuing military conflict as significant factors in the sharp rise in antisemitic incidents across the U.S. The conflict has sparked protests on college campuses across the country in recent weeks over the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilans in Gaza — including at the University of Florida, University of South Florida and University of North Florida.

Arden, of the county's Jewish Federation, said the roots of antisemitism run deeper than that exposed by the current military conflict in Gaza.

"Antisemitism didn't start on Oct. 7, and it didn't start as a result of the war," she said. "The war just accelerated it."

About a dozen people have been arrested over the past week during on-campus protests at several Florida universities. Deutch said he supports protesting as a fundamental right, but added that threats, harassment and disrupting campus functions should not be tolerated.

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"When Jewish students are blocked from entering campus, when professors celebrate the mass murder of Jews, or students march wearing headbands of terrorist groups, that's not free speech," he said. "That's threatening behavior that is meant to intimidate and silence an entire community."