Nearly one in three US Jews reported being targeted by antisemitism in 2025, survey finds

American Jewish Committee findings show 55% of American Jews avoid specific behavior that may identify them as Jewish, and two-thirds feel less secure than in previous year

JTA — Almost one-third of American Jews reported being the target of an antisemitic incident in 2025, according to a new survey published by the American Jewish Committee.

The report said 31% of respondents were “a target of an antisemitic incident—a physical attack, a remark in person, antisemitic vandalism or messaging, antisemitic remark or post online or through social media, or any other form of antisemitism.”

The finding marked no change over the previous year, suggesting that American Jews could be settling into a distressing new normal in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel.

“Things aren’t getting markedly better,” said Ted Deutch, the CEO of the AJC, in an interview. “I don’t think that we can afford to accept it as a baseline. We can’t accept that, and America shouldn’t accept that.”

Surveying 1,222 American Jewish adults from September 26 to October 9, 2025, the AJC found a plateau in several indicators of sentiment.

Overall, 55 percent of American Jews reported avoiding specific behaviors in 2025 due to fear of antisemitism, including steering clear of certain events and refraining from wearing things, or posting things online, that would identify them as Jewish.

The finding also marked no change from 2024, when 56% of Jews reported changing their behavior for fear of antisemitism, but was up from 46% in 2023 and 38% in 2022.

Respondents were also asked if they felt “less safe” as a result of several high-profile antisemitic attacks in 2025, including the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home in April; the deadly shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, in May; and the firebombing of a demonstration for the Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, in June.

A man affixes a bouquet of flowers to a makeshift memorial for victims of an attack outside of the Boulder County courthouse, June 3, 2025, in Boulder, Colorado. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

About a quarter of respondents said the attacks had made them feel “a great deal” less safe, while 31% reported feeling “a fair amount” less safe and 32% responded that they felt “a little” less safe.

Overall, according to the report, two-thirds of respondents said that they believed Jews in the United States were less secure than a year ago.

Deutch said the findings of the group’s latest report should serve not only as a warning for Jews, but as a “warning sign of the cracks in the foundation of our society.”

“This is about more than just what’s happening to Jews,” he said. “We’ve always been first, the Jews have always been a canary in the coal mine, and we have to take this seriously. The broader community has to take this seriously for the benefit, not just of our Jewish community, but for our society and our democracy.”

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

Illustrative: Demonstrators from the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace protest inside Trump Tower in support of Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, March 13, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Roughly two-thirds of respondents said they disapproved of Trump’s actions, though views split sharply along partisan lines, with 84% of Jewish Democrats disapproving of Trump’s response at least somewhat compared to 9% of Jewish Republicans.

The survey comes as some Jewish leaders have lamented what they have described as the inefficacy of efforts to combat antisemitism.

Last month, at the Second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, political theorist Yoram Hazony decried what he described as an “extremely high level of incompetence by the entire anti-Semitism-industrial complex.”

Bret Stephens, the right-leaning Jewish New York Times columnist, argued in an address last week that the Jewish community should abandon its efforts to combat antisemitism and instead invest in strengthening Jewish life.

Deutch said the decision between combating antisemitism and strengthening Jewish education and infrastructure was a false choice.

“It’s not a trade-off. We can’t afford to choose one or the other,” said Deutch. “We don’t have the luxury of deciding that we’re either going to invest in more education for our leaders and for ourselves and helping to create the next generation of well-educated Jewish leaders, or engaging with the broader community and leaders across the broader community about the scourge of antisemitism.”