CAM Tracks 5.6 Antisemitic Incidents Daily in January, Up 6% From 2022 Yearly Average

The CAM Antisemitism Research Center tracked a total of 173 antisemitic incidents reported in the media worldwide in January 2023, marking a daily average of 5.6 incidents.

CAM’s Monthly Antisemitism Report classifies incidents of Jew-hatred (including physical assault, verbal harassment, vandalism, and hate speech) by the ideologies of the perpetrators.

In all of 2022, CAM recorded a total of 1,921 incidents, or an average of 5.3 incidents per day.

Of January 2023’s incidents, 56.6% (98) had far-right motives (compared to 53.0% of 2022’s total), while 6.9% (12) had far-left motives (compared to 13.5% of 2022’s total) and 13.9% (24) had Islamist motives (compared to 14.0% of 2022’s total). The remainder — 22.5% (39) — had unidentifiable motives (compared to 19.5% of 2022’s total).

Also in January, CAM monitored 26 physical threats against Jews, as well as 75 incidents of antisemitic vandalism.

A new monthly Toxicity Analysis — published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) in partnership with the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) — revealed the disturbing extent of antisemitic rhetoric and sentiment on Twitter.

Using a keyword bank (including the terms “Jew,” “Jews,” “Jewish,” “Judaism,” “Zionists,” “Zionism,” “ZOG,” “Kike,” and “Khazars”), a total of 1.3 million tweets were collected in January, and a statistically-significant random sample of 10,000 were indexed using a machine learning model.

The results showed 14% of the tweets were identity attacks on Jews, 11% were toxic toward Jews, 7% were insults to Jews, and 1% were threats against Jews.

Meanwhile, another CAM/NCRI study released this month demonstrated that extremist elements have viewed Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter as an opportunity to rejoin the social media platform en masse, with a sea change taking place on Twitter regarding the proliferation of antisemitic content.

The CAM Antisemitism Research Center also detected and monitored a surge of antisemitic incidents across the U.S. state of Florida over the past several months.

CAM is also encouraged by the 1,100 entities worldwide that have adopted the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as of the end of December 2022. The full set of global adoption data is available in the 2022 IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism Adoptions and Endorsements Report, authored by CAM and the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University.

There was 35 new adoptions of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism in January — by the Republic of Croatia; Piedmont, Italy; Florence, Italy; Kansas City, Missouri; Westchester County, New York; Swampscott, Massachusetts; University of Melbourne in Australia; and 28 Polish Jewish organizations.

The full monthly report can be viewed here.

For more information on CAM’s antisemitism incidents data, which is collected on a weekly basis, visit: combatantisemitism.org/newsletters