Poll: US Jews see a rise in antisemitism, but few are personally targeted

(RNS) — A recent ballot of 1,222 U.S. Jews suggests Jews overwhelmingly watch antisemitism as a allege, with 86% saying it has increased “a lot” or “somewhat” since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, on Israel, and Israel’s retaliatory two-year military campaign.

But the ballot, commissioned by the American Jewish Committee, a 120-year-feeble Jewish institution increasingly outspoken in its defense of Israel, doesn’t reveal any uptick in the alternative of Jews who have personally skilled antisemitism.

Asked “Have you, your self, been the target of an antisemitic attack in person?,” 97% of U.S. Jews polled said no, although 71% said they had “seen or heard” antisemitic declare material, such as feedback, posts or videos, online or on social media circuitously related to them. Seventy-nine percent of U.S. Jews said they did not feel physically threatened by such posts.

The ballot does reveal that U.S. Jews reported avoiding particular behaviors in 2025 out of fear of encountering antisemitism; 41% said they “avoided publicly wearing, carrying, or displaying things that may encourage of us title you as a Jew,” and 30% said they “avoided certain places, events, or situations out of field to your safety or consolation as a Jew.” Generally speaking, 66% of U.S. Jews reported they felt “less glean than a year ago.”

These numbers marked no change over 2024 when the same questions have been asked, and solely a marginal uptick from 2022, when 38% of American Jews said they changed their behavior in the past Three hundred and sixty five days out of fear of antisemitism.

Asked in the occasion that they had regarded as leaving the United States and moving someplace else in the past five years, 83% of U.S. Jews said they had not.

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Last year saw a alternative of violent antisemitic incidents in the U.S. Most prominently, in April, the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the place Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family had been celebrating Passover, was attach on fire by a man who had brought a small sledgehammer to attack the governor. The following month, a gunman opened fire launch air the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, killing two Israeli Embassy staff contributors who have been attending an tournament at the museum.

In June, a man threw Molotov cocktails at a community of Jewish Americans demonstrating in make stronger of Israeli hostages at a Boulder, Colorado, park. Twelve of us have been injured and one later died of her injuries.

There is growing debate in Jewish circles about easy how one can respond and unease with the Trump administration’s response. 

The AJC released the primary State of Antisemitism in America Document in 2019, one year after the 2018 Tree of Lifestyles shooting in Pittsburgh that left 11 Jews dead.

The present see was carried out by the research agency SSRS and was fielded between Sept. 26 and Oct. 29, 2025. It has a plus or minus 3.7 percentage point margin of error.

For the primary time, the AJC also asked American Jews whether they approved of the way President Donald Trump was responding to antisemitism in the nation.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said they disapproved “somewhat” or “strongly” of Trump’s response to antisemitism. In addition, 67% of respondents said they disapproved of how Congress was handling antisemitism. The ballot did not ask about particular Trump administration policies. But diverse polls have shown that U.S. Jews disapprove of the Trump administration’s decision to carry federal funding from faculties and universities for failing to combat antisemitism, a tactic they watch as having unrelated political goals.

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