March 2022 Antisemitic Trends Update: Nearly 200% Increase in Monitored Physical Threats

During March 2022, the Combat Antisemitsm Movement (CAM) Information Hub tracked 183 antisemitic incidents reported in the media, a 2.2% increase increase from March 2021. In aggregate, 570 incidents were tracked in the first quarter of 2022, for an average of 6.3 incidents per day, compared 516 incidents, or 5.7 per day in the first quarter of 2021, and 6.1 incidents per day in calendar year 2021.

Compared to the same month in 2021, March 2022 experienced a 1.1% increase in incidents of far-right antisemitism, and 15.0% and 16.7% decreases in incidents of far-left antisemitism and Islamist antisemitism, respectively. CAM monitored 24 physical threats targeting Jews, a 200% increase from the same month last year. Meanwhile, 68 incidents of antisemitic vandalism were monitored, a 47.8% rise year-over-year.

Broken down my ideological motivation, the 183 incidents monitored by CAM included 96 incidents (52.5%) emanating from the far-right, 34 incidents (18.6%) from the far-left, 20 incidents (10.9%) with Islamist motivations, and 33 incidents (18.0%) unidentifiable in nature.

CAM recorded 68 incidents of antisemitic vandalism, representing 37.2% of total, 24 incidents representing physical threats (13.1%), and 91 incidents (49.7%) of hateful conduct or harassment.

CAM tracked eight adoptions or endorsements of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism in March 2022. On the government level, the U.S. states of Kansas and Iowa passed legislative measures endorsing the definition, and the municipal governments of Washington, D.C. – the capital city of the United States – and Peabody, Massachusetts also endorsed the IHRA’s working definition.

Washington, D.C. joins a growing list of national capital cities to endorse the working definition, including London, Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and others. Additionally, the U.S. state of Utah passed legislation adopting the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which was signed into law by the governor, following the governor’s earlier endorsement of the definition in January 2022.

The University of Reading in the United Kingdom became the latest educational institution to adopt the definition. North American organizations that also endorsed the definition in March included the National Religious Broadcasters — the largest association of Christian broadcasters in the United States — as well as the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and the Bloc Québécois political movement in Canada.