New York Had 72 Antisemitic Assaults, Florida Had 1

New York had 580 antisemitic incidents making it the highest in the country.

Antisemitic incidents surge in Florida, growing more than nationwide. – Sun Sentinel

Those South Florida incidents, from the early weeks of 2022, were at the beginning of a surge that produced the highest annual number of antisemitic incidents ever recorded in Florida and nationwide in the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. ADL has compiled and verified assaults, harassment and vandalism since 1979.

It was worse in Florida than in the U.S. overall, the third year in a row that the state’s increase outpaced the national increase, Sarah Emmons, ADL’s Florida regional director, said in a video presentation on the report.

While it’s a good idea to be concerned about antisemitism, Florida’s high is still less than half of New York’s.

In 2022, New York had 580 antisemitic incidents, making it the highest in the country.

This is a 39% increase from 2021, when 416 incidents were reported, and more than double from a decade ago.

The ADL says that incidents in New York alone accounted for 15.7% of all documented antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2022.

New York does have a much higher Jewish population (although Florida is quickly gaining). But the antisemitic incidents in New York are also much more likely to be violent while in Florida they’re just hateful writings.

And Florida’s increase isn’t even that much of an outlier as the story tries to imply.

The number of antisemitic incidents increased 41.5% in Florida to 269 last year compared to the year before. Florida’s total was more than triple the 76 recorded in 2018.

Nationally, the report showed a 36.1% increase in antisemitic incidents to a total of 3,697 — an average of 10 a day. The U.S. total was almost double the 1,879 recorded four years earlier.

36% vs. 41% outpaces the national average but not by that much.

Using the ADL’s numbers (I haven’t checked them, but just for the sake of argument) New York had 72 assaults, California had 13, Massachusets had 4, and Florida had 1.

I suspect these numbers are incomplete because antisemitic incident databases tend to draw heavily on minor incidents that will be reported (a swastika leaflet) involving more secular and wealthier areas while ignoring more violent incidents involving poorer and more religious areas. But they still do paint a picture.

During the pandemic, New York’s governor, the media and its elites spent much of it harassing and blaming Orthodox Jews for the outbreak. Florida went a very different way. The ADL doesn’t want to talk about that.

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