The United States continued to experience elevated levels of antisemitic vandalism and violence this week. Anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside a Los Angeles synagogue, attempting to block entry into the building and injuring counter-protesters during clashes. This shocking targeting of a Jewish institution prompted condemnations from politicians including U.S. President Joe Biden, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. In New York City’s Williamsburg neighborhood, five attackers targeted an Orthodox Jew with antisemitic hate speech and threw traffic cones and bottles at him. In addition, a Cleveland-area synagogue received a bomb threat, and vandals painted swastikas on several vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, on Juneteenth. 

Western Europe was also plagued by similar incidents this week. In a Paris suburb, three attackers harassed six Jewish youths with antisemitic hate speech and repeatedly slapped one of the victims, while in Brussels, assailants vandalized a memorial honoring non-Jews who helped protect Jews from the Nazis with graffiti reading, “Escalate for Palestine, everyone.” Deadly antisemitic violence also reared its head in Eastern Europe when terrorists in Russia’s Dagestan region attacked synagogues and churches, killing 19 people, mostly police officers. The assailants set the Kele-Numaz synagogue in Derbent on fire and subsequently attacked another synagogue in Makhachkala.

In the Middle East, Hezbollah’s Foreign Relations Chief Khalil Rizk promulgated abhorrent antisemitism during a televised interview in Lebanon, saying, “When a Jew is standing in front of the Wailing Wall, his worship instructs him to oppress people, to shed the blood of the Palestinians, and to drive these people out of Palestine.” Pro-Hamas protesters also reportedly demonstrated in Morocco and Yemen.

This week’s Global Antisemitism Report highlights 71 new incidents, categorized as follows: 50 (70.4%) as anti-Israel or anti-Zionist manifestations of antisemitism, 8 (11.3%) as Islamist, 6 (8.5%) as unattributable, 5 (7%) as classical antisemitism, and 2 (2.8%) as Holocaust minimization and distortion.