2025 was ‘deadliest’ year for anti-Semitic attacks in decades: report

NEW YORK – Last year was the “deadliest” for anti-Semitic attacks in more than 30 years, according to a report released on July 29 by the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism.

The report looked at incidents in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Britain and the United States, which together are home to more than 90 per cent of Jewish people outside of Israel.

Twenty people were murdered in anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, Britain and the United States in 2025, making it “the deadliest year for anti-Semitic attacks in the diaspora... since the AMIA attack in Buenos Aires in 1994,” the report says, referring to the bombing that targeted a Jewish community centre killing 85 people.

In December 2025, 15 people were killed in an anti-Semitic mass shooting at a Hanukkah festival near Australia’s Bondi Beach.

In October, two people were killed in an attack on a packed synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holy day.

Two attacks in the United States killed three people.

“Anti-Semitism in our seven countries is no longer a surge; it is our new normal,” the J7 task force said in a statement.

“Governments must stop reacting after Jews are attacked and start acting before, with real security funding, stronger laws and social media platforms that enforce their own rules,” it said.

The report documented more than 23,000 anti-Semitic incidents across the seven countries in 2025. Around 9,800 were recorded in 2022, the year before Hamas’ deadly Oct 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war.

From 2022 to 2025, anti-Semitic incidents rose by 136 per cent overall, with violent incidents rising by 97 per cent, according to the task force.

While the total number of incidents fell from 2024 to 2025, the figure remains well above pre-Oct 7 levels.

The report identified anti-Zionism as a key motivating factor, accounting for 48 per cent of incidents in Britain and 45 per cent in the United States.

It also noted the situation in Ireland, not one of the seven countries studied, where in a period of six months, its Jewish community of around 2,200 people reported 143 incidents. AFP