Report: Anti-Semitic Hate Crimes Rose 18% in LA County

The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Rights released a report on October 23 detailing how anti-Semitic hate crimes increased by 18% in Los Angeles County from 2018 to 2019.

According to the report, the number of anti-Semitic hate crimes in the county in 2019 was 93; in 2018, that number was 79. The report noted that the 93 instances is the largest number of anti-Semitic hate crimes that the county has recorded since 2009.

“This increase was mirrored by a national 2019 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents issued by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),” the report stated. “The study found that the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2019 (both hate crimes and non-criminal hate incidents) increased 12% percent compared to the previous year. That included a 56% increase in the number of assaults and 5 fatalities, including a white supremacist shooting at a Chabad center in Poway, California that took the life of a 60 year-old woman and wounded two others.”

Additionally, white supremacist-induced hate crimes increased 38% in the county, from 84 instances in 2018 to 116 instances in 2019. Fifty-one percent of the victims of white supremacist hate crimes were Jews, 28% were Blacks, and 6% were Latino.

Additionally, white supremacist-induced hate crimes increased 38% in the county.

Some of the anti-Semitic hate crimes that occurred in LA county in 2019 included an assailant shouting, “F— Jews!” as he robbed an individual in April 2019 and the welcome sign of a Northridge synagogue being vandalized with graffiti stating, “6 million was not enough” in September 2019, according to the ADL.

Los Angeles Jewish groups called the report “troubling.”

“Of particular concern was that religious-based hate crimes increased by 11 percent, with those targeting the Jewish community increasing 18 percent,” ADL Los Angeles Regional Director Jeffrey Abrams said in a statement. “These crimes are always the majority of religious-based hate crimes and this year, at 89 percent, was no exception.”

American Jewish Committee Los Angeles Regional Director Richard S. Hirschhaut similarly said in a statement, “The LA County Hate Crime Report is a troubling barometer of the climate of intolerance in our community and society. That the number of bias-motivated incidents remained constant in 2019 reveals a coarseness and incivility in our culture, too often fueled by divisive rhetoric, in which bigots and extremists believe they can act with impunity. Behind every incident of hate lies an individual or institution that represents a larger and often vulnerable community. And while this report only covers 2019, we already know the corrosive effects of the bigotry that has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is incumbent upon the apparatus of civil society — law enforcement, public officials, and community leaders alike — to redouble our efforts to address this scourge, especially during this period of national introspection about the kind of society we hope to become.”