Connect with us

RSS

Los Angeles County Records Record High Number of Antisemitic Hate Crimes

Anti-Israel demonstrators outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily-Jewish Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles, June 23, 2024. Photo: Screenshot

Los Angeles County in California has experienced an all-time high number of hate crimes targeting the Jewish community, according to figures compiled by a local government agency and released last week.

Issued by the LA County Commission on Human Relations (LACCHR), the data for 2023 showed a 45 percent increase in overall reported hate crimes to a total of 1,350, the largest number in the history of the commission’s annual analysis, with violence against nearly all groups spiking last year.

The numbers showed an unprecedented increase specifically in antisemitic hate crimes, which rose 91 percent last year from 127 to 242 in what the commission described as “the largest number of anti-Jewish crimes ever recorded.”

“Although the numbers reported today are unprecedented for multiple communities throughout LA County, they signal that more people are coming forward to report hate crimes and are refusing to accept the normalization of hate,” LACCHR president Helen Chin said in a statement. “The anti-hate programs led by our commission provide LA County residents with a system where people can report hate and receive help. By standing together, we can extinguish hate and discrimination in every community and reinforce that hate and discrimination have no place here.”

LA County board of supervisors chair Kathryn Barger added, “Hate crimes don’t just target individuals — they harm entire communities. They’re an attack on the very fabric of who we are, and the shared values that unite us. That’s why this report is so important — it’s more than just data. It serves as a mirror, reflecting the challenges we face and the work we must do to create a county where everyone feels save, respected, and valued. By analyzing the patterns and trends in hate crimes, we can better understand our efforts need to be focused and how we can prevent such acts in the future.”

The report was released about six months after Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to address an escalation of antisemitic incidents in LA.

“Los Angeles is becoming more and more unsafe for its Jewish residents,” Chikli said, emphasizing the urgent need for proactive measures to combat rising antisemitism.

The Israeli minister highlighted several specific incidents, including one in November 2023 in Thousand Oaks, a suburb of Los Angeles in Ventura County, where an anti-Israel protester allegedly caused the death of a Jewish man during dueling demonstrations held over the Israel-Hamas war. Community college professor Loay Alnaji, 50, was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter for his alleged role in the death of Paul Kessler, 69. Alnaji pleaded not guilty, and his case is still going through the courts.

Chikli also referenced violent anti-Israel demonstration outside of the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily-Jewish Pico-Robertson area of Los Angeles in June. The demonstrators waved Palestine flags and donned keffiyehs while blocking entry into the synagogue. They chanted “intifada revolution” and “free Palestine” in front of the building while intimidating bystanders. After catching wind of the protest, a crowd of pro-Israel counter-protesters subsequently flooded the scene in an attempt to defend the synagogue. The scene quickly descended into chaos, and anti-Israel activists were recorded shoving, punching, and screaming at those attempting to defend the synagogue.

College campuses in LA County also saw incidents targeting the Jewish community. In fall semester of 2023, perpetrators on the grounds of the University of California-Los Angeles chanted “Itbah El Yahud” at Bruin Plaza, which means “slaughter the Jews” in Arabic, tore a chapter page out of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel The Plot Against America — titled “Loudmouth Jew” — and left it outside the home of a UCLA faculty member, and staged a disturbing demonstration in which protesters cudgeled a piñata, to which a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s face was glued, while shouting “beat the Jew.”

In 2023, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 8,873 antisemitic incidents— an average of 24 every day — across the US, amounting to a year unlike any experienced by the American Jewish community since the organization began tracking such data on antisemitic outrages in 1979. Most of the outrages occurred after Hamas’s terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all spiked by double and triple digits, with California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts accounting for nearly half, or 48 percent, of all that occurred.

Breaking down the numbers, the ADL found a dramatic rise in the targeting of Jewish institutions such as synagogues, community centers, and schools, with 1,987 such incidents taking place in 2023 — a 237 percent increase which included over a thousand fake bomb threats, also known as “swattings.”

Other figures were equally staggering, with assaults and vandalism rising by 45 percent and 69 percent, respectively, while harassment soared by 184 percent. Antisemitic incidents on college campuses, which The Algemeiner has continued to cover extensively, rose 321 percent, disrupting the studies of Jewish students and leaving them uncertain about the fate of the American Jewish community.

The last quarter of the year proved the most injurious, the ADL noted, explaining that after the Hamas atrocities in October, 5,204 antisemitic incidents rocked the Jewish community. Across the political spectrum, from white supremacists on the far right to ostensibly left-wing Ivy League universities, antisemites emerged to express solidarity with the Palestinian terrorist group, spread antisemitic tropes and blood libels, and openly call for a genocide of the Jewish people in Israel.

Such incidents occurred throughout the US. At Cornell University in upstate New York, a student threatened to rape and kill Jewish female students and “shoot up” the campus’ Hillel center. In a suburb outside Cleveland, Ohio, a group of vandals desecrated graves at a Jewish cemetery. At Harvard University, America’s oldest and, arguably, most prestigious university, a faculty group shared an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David dangling two men of color from a noose.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post Los Angeles County Records Record High Number of Antisemitic Hate Crimes first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Continue Reading

RSS

After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

Continue Reading

RSS

Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

Continue Reading

RSS

Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

Continue Reading

Copyright © 2017 - 2023 Jewish Post & News