Counting Antisemitic Incidents: What the ADL Audit Reveals — and Obscures
Executive Summary
The Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents is one of the most cited reports on the state of antisemitism in the United States, but it emerges out of ADL’s own ideological definitions, which are not universally held. The Audit’s categorization scheme also glosses over important distinctions between some types of incidents, especially those related to Israel.
Together, these factors limit the Audit’s usefulness. Readers who want reliable data on antisemitism but disagree with ADL’s definition of the term, especially regarding anti-Israel activism, may dismiss the entire dataset as biased. Policymakers, educators, and community leaders who base their understanding of antisemitism in America today on the Audit may have a harder time developing effective strategies because they are missing details trapped in the Audit’s overly broad categories.
To help draw out more detailed patterns in the ADL data, the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research (NCAR) examined ADL’s publicly posted dataset for the 2025 Audit — 6,274 incidents — and applied its own thematic taxonomy to the 2,847 incidents (45%) that ADL categorized as related to Israel or Zionism. NCAR did not add or remove any incidents, and this analysis relies solely on information ADL has made public.
This analysis in no way seeks to downplay contemporary America’s historically high levels of antisemitism or suggest that any incident in the Audit is unworthy of serious concern. On the contrary: by elucidating what the Audit dataset actually contains, this analysis will make the Audit more useful for policy and more trusted by the people best positioned to act on it.
Key Findings
- 12% of the Audit (731 incidents) consists of incidents where perpetrators conflated Jews or Jewish institutions with the State of Israel: In 731 incidents, Jewish people were harassed or assaulted, or their property was vandalized, apparently by people who were motivated by anger towards Israel or Zionism.
- 18% of the Audit (1,116 incidents) consists of hostile expressions about Zionists, Zionism, or Israel that ADL considers antisemitic: These incidents include support for terrorism 279 (4.4%), general anti-Zionist statements 281 (4.5%), calls for “resistance” 208 (3.3%), “From the River to the Sea” 197 (3.1%), calls for “intifada” 154 (2.5%), Nazi comparisons 80 (1.3%), calls for Zionists to be killed 24 (0.4%). Categories are not mutually exclusive. By including an incident in one of these categories, NCAR is not saying that it is not antisemitic — merely that it has different thematic elements, and some phrases are open to multiple interpretations.
- 13% of the Audit (roughly 790 incidents) consists of rally rhetoric about Israel or Zionism, not direct harassment of Jews: Roughly 790 incidents were included because of chants, signs, or speeches at anti-Israel rallies that ADL deemed antisemitic, ranging from “From the River to the Sea” to expressions of support for Hamas. ADL’s descriptions of these incidents record no targeting of Jewish people or institutions and none of the classic antisemitic tropes, slurs, or symbols described in this report. These make up the large majority of the 883 incidents that took place at anti-Israel rallies. The remaining roughly 100 involved rally-goers targeting Jews or Jewish institutions, including 28 protests staged at synagogues and other Jewish institutions, expressing classic antisemitic tropes or slurs, or conflating Jews with Israel; among them were a handful of physical confrontations and about 20 cases of direct harassment of Jewish people. (NCAR identified 883 rally incidents in the dataset; ADL’s published figure is 856.)
- Most rallies in the Audit took place in public areas such as streets and parks, not on campuses or at Jewish institutions: Of the 883 rally incidents, 165 (19%) occurred on campus and 28 (3%) at Jewish institutions. The rest took place on streets, in parks, and at transportation hubs and government buildings.
- Campus incidents are concentrated; campus rallies were not violent: The 583 campus incidents (72% Israel-related) took place at at least 214 identifiable colleges and universities — about 8% of the nation’s four-year institutions, though these include many campuses with large Jewish enrollment. 148 of those campuses (69%) experienced two or fewer incidents; the highest, Columbia University, had 15. A bit more than a quarter of campus incidents (165) took place at anti-Israel rallies; approximately ten of these included direct harassment of Jews or attempts to disrupt Jewish events, with the rest included because of statements, chants, or slogans. By ADL’s own measure, none incorporated violence. Separately, 37 incidents occurred in student housing, the vast majority with no Israel connection: swastikas, Nazi references, slurs, and Mezuzot torn from doorways.
About This Analysis
NCAR researchers manually coded every Israel-related incident and developed a detailed protocol; two large language models then independently applied it to surface inconsistencies and difficult cases, and every disagreement was resolved by human review, with a spot-check of about 10% of classifications. The author worked at ADL for 18 years, including as director of its Center on Extremism, but this report is not based on any of ADL’s proprietary data. See the Methodological Note below for details.
Introduction
The Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents is one of the most cited reports each year on the state of antisemitism in the United States. It tracks incidents of antisemitic vandalism, harassment, and assault, and it uses categories to illustrate the problem of antisemitism and where it occurs. But the Audit can also be a controversial document, employing inclusion criteria that others in the American Jewish community disagree with, and relying on analytic categories that do not capture important fact patterns within its own data.
Much of the controversy around the Audit hinges on ADL’s decision to categorize all the diverse types of incidents in its dataset as “antisemitic” — a term with a broad range of meanings. Research has shown that people interpret the word “antisemitism” in markedly different ways, with the sharpest disagreement over what kinds of criticism of Israel or Zionism should qualify.[1] Over the past decade, ADL has taken an increasingly expansive view, adopting the position in 2022 that anti-Zionism is fundamentally antisemitic, and announcing in 2023 that it would include certain types of anti-Zionist expressions in the Audit.[2] This tracks with ADL’s emergence as a champion of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which characterizes several forms of criticism of Israel and Zionism as antisemitic. Other definitional frameworks exist, however, including the Nexus Document, which draws finer distinctions on some of the most contentious issues related to antisemitism and criticism of Israel/Zionism. The Audit, then, and its use of the term “antisemitic incident,” emerge out of ADL’s own ideological position on what antisemitism is.
It is not possible to comprehensively determine which of the Audit incidents comport with other frameworks for defining antisemitism, mostly because ADL does not provide enough information on specific incidents. The ADL Audit dataset — which, to its credit, ADL posts on its website — typically gives a brief, one- or two-sentence description of each incident: usually enough information to indicate why ADL included it, but not enough to enable readers to apply more context-sensitive criteria for what should be considered antisemitic under other definitions or their own beliefs.
ADL’s approach to defining antisemitism, coupled with an Audit that provides little context about individual incidents, may undermine the Audit and miss an opportunity to fight antisemitism effectively and address other concerns of American Jews. In particular, the Audit does not offer quantitative breakdowns of more detailed patterns within its Israel-related incidents — breakdowns that could help readers better understand the landscape of antisemitism in contemporary America. Combining many different types of incidents can make it harder to develop policy or educational responses to specific challenges facing the Jewish community, and it may alienate people who are committed to helping Jews thrive in this country, but who disagree with some of ADL’s ideological positions or methodological choices. The result is an Audit that may be less useful — or even counterproductive — for policy discussions, and less trusted by the people best positioned to act on it.
To fill this gap, the Nexus Center for Antisemitism Research (NCAR) examined in detail ADL’s dataset for the 2025 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents. The Audit was released in May 2026, and covered incidents that occurred in the United States in the 2025 calendar year. We paid special attention to the incidents in the Audit which ADL categorized as being related to Israel or Zionism — 2,847 incidents out of a total of 6,274, or nearly half of the Audit. We created and applied our own categorization system to the data, which is explored below. In doing so, we make plainer how ADL defines antisemitism; more importantly, we reveal additional insights into the landscape of incidents across the U.S. that affect Jews, regardless of whether they meet any single definition of antisemitism.
It is important to note that nothing in this analysis is intended to downplay the historically high levels of antisemitism in the United States or suggest that any of the incidents in the Audit are not worthy of serious concern. Our goal is to provide a clearer understanding of ADL’s dataset by helping elucidate themes and categories in the data that ADL itself does not provide.
Methodological Note
This analysis rests on a ‘recoding’ of the ADL Audit dataset from 2025 according to a new thematic taxonomy devised by NCAR. NCAR did not add or remove any incidents from the ADL dataset, which is available on ADL’s HEAT Map, and the recoding relied solely on information provided by ADL. Because ADL only provides a one or two sentence generic description of each incident, it is impossible to know the larger context in which each incident occurred, including the events leading up to the incident, information about the perpetrators, or additional facts which, if known, might have affected where the incidents would have been placed in the NCAR taxonomy.
NCAR researchers manually coded every incident that ADL identified as being related to Israel or Zionism. They distinguished between incidents featuring classic anti-Jewish tropes, white supremacist activity, or the conflation of Jews with Israel, from other written or verbal expressions of hostility towards Zionists, Zionism, Israel, or Israelis. The latter group was further divided into categories including support for terrorism, calls to kill or exclude Zionists, protest slogans, Nazi or Holocaust comparisons, and other forms of anti-Zionist hostility. The inclusion of an incident in this latter group does not mean that it is not antisemitic; merely that it has different thematic elements.
The initial human coding of every incident was used to develop a detailed protocol that further refined our categories and their boundaries. Two large language models then independently applied this protocol to every incident to spot inconsistencies in our original coding, apply the revised protocol more consistently, and surface incidents that presented unusual classification questions. Human researchers reviewed every incident on which the two models disagreed with one another or that either model flagged as difficult to parse, resolved them under the settled rules, and spot-checked a random sample of about 10% of the completed classifications.
The director of this coding effort and author of this report worked at ADL for 18 years in various roles, including as director of its Center on Extremism. At ADL he directed or contributed to the creation of numerous annual Audits; in the case of the 2025 Audit, he directed part of the data collection but left ADL before totals were finalized and before any of its analysis or writing had begun. Although this report is informed by his knowledge of how ADL conducts and produces its Audits, it is not based on any of ADL’s proprietary data, and it does not include any information that is not already publicly available on ADL’s website. This report scrutinizes how the Audit categorizes and presents the incidents it counts, not the integrity or diligence of the staff who compile it.
Antisemitic Incidents Unrelated to Israel
Fifty-five percent (55%) of the ADL Audit (3,427 incidents) is made up of incidents that have nothing to do with Israel, including 163 assaults, 1,945 cases of harassment, and 1,319 cases of vandalism. These incidents are what we might consider classic antisemitism, such as Jews being shot at, stabbed, attacked, or harassed while an alleged perpetrator made antisemitic comments or used anti-Jewish slurs, or where property was damaged by vandals in a manner that indicated the presence of antisemitism, such as the use of swastikas, anti-Jewish messages, and the like.
Israel-Related Incidents
The remaining 45% of the Audit included 2,847 antisemitic incidents in which the fact pattern indicated some anti-Israel or anti-Zionist animus on the part of the perpetrator(s). ADL provides limited thematic breakdowns of the incidents in this category. To assist with analysis, NCAR devised a thematic taxonomy of the Israel-related incidents in the ADL Audit, as follows.
Incidents related to Israel or Zionism, by NCAR category
Hostile expression is the largest category, at 1,116 of the 2,847 incidents related to Israel or Zionism.
Conflation (Holding Jews responsible for Israel’s actions): 731 incidents involved conflation — no explicit antisemitic slurs, language, or symbols were present, but Jewish people were harassed or assaulted, or their property was vandalized, apparently by people who were motivated by anger towards Israel or Zionism. Examples include yelling “Free Palestine” at Jewish people as they stand in front of a synagogue; ripping a Star of David necklace from a Jewish person’s neck while calling them a Zionist; and vandalizing a synagogue with graffiti related to the conflict in Gaza. These incidents demonstrate a disregard for the fact that there is a wide range of opinion in the Jewish community about Israel’s conduct of the war, and that Jews have a wide range of relationships and connections with Israel. Conflating Jews in general with the actions of Israel is antisemitic according to all major definitions.
Co-occurrence (Antisemitic tropes/slurs alongside anti-Israel messaging): 387 incidents included overt antisemitic language or symbols concurrently with anti-Israel messaging. Some incidents from the Audit include: students throwing trash and yelling “fucking Jew” and “Zionist pig” at a Jewish student; a Jewish senior living facility which received a phone call from someone who said, “Free Palestine. Hitler was right. All you Jews are going to die soon. Your time is running out”; and graffiti written near a synagogue that read: “Fuck Israel” and “6 Mil [sic] were not enough.”
White Supremacist (White supremacist anti-Israel activity): 413 cases in which white supremacist extremists, including from groups like Patriot Front, the Active Club Network, and White Lives Matter distributed anti-Israel flyers or stickers or held rallies that contained anti-Israel messaging. In these cases, the anti-Israel messaging is inextricably bound up in the groups’ open and avowed commitment to classic antisemitism.
Miscellaneous/Confidential (Other antisemitic tropes and confidential incidents related to Israel): There were also 177 miscellaneous incidents which incorporated other antisemitic tropes alongside references to Israel, along with 23 incidents whose details were kept confidential by ADL, including to protect the identities of the victims.
Hostile expressions toward Zionists, Zionism, or Israel
That leaves 1,116 Israel-related incidents — roughly 39% of all Israel-related incidents, and 18% of the entire Audit — that fit none of those descriptions: they did not conflate Jews with Israel, did not involve classic anti-Jewish slurs or tropes, and were not the work of white supremacists. These incidents consist of anti-Israel or anti-Zionist expression or activity that ADL counts as antisemitic. To clarify the themes running through them, NCAR coded these incidents into the following categories. The categories are not mutually exclusive; a single incident may fall into more than one, so the category counts sum to more than 1,116, even though the number of underlying incidents does not change.
- Terrorism (Explicit or implicit support for terrorism against Israel): 279 incidents expressed support for terrorism or attacks on Israel, ranging from explicit endorsement to less obvious expressions. Some incidents praised the October 7 Hamas operation or its architect, Yahya Sinwar. Others used imagery associated with terror groups, such as paragliders (a symbol of the October 7 attack), the inverted red triangle popularized by Hamas to mark targets, or portraits of figures like Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida. Some were generic expressions of support for terrorist groups, including graffiti reading “Free Palestine, Glory to Hamas and Hezbollah.” Phrases like “by any means necessary” appeared in chants, signs, and graffiti, in contexts that are hard to interpret as anything other than an endorsement of violence against Israelis.
- Kill Zionists (Calls for Zionists to be killed): 24 incidents featured explicit or implicit calls for the death of Zionists. They appeared as graffiti, including “Kill Zionists, death to the IDF” spray-painted on an abandoned building, “Fuck you Zionists kill yourselves” on park benches, and “No tears for dead Zionists” on a subway car.
- Intifada (Expressions using the word “intifada”): ADL logged 154 calls for an intifada, including phrases such as “Long live the intifada,” “Globalize the intifada,” and “There is only one solution, intifada, revolution.” These phrases most often occurred at rallies but were also frequently found in pieces of graffiti and in leaflets and flyers.
- Resistance (Expressions calling for ‘resistance’): ADL also included 208 cases in which anti-Israel activists called for “resistance” — most commonly in the phrase “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” which was chanted at rallies and appeared on signs, t-shirts, and flyers. These incidents are distinct from the more overt expressions of support for terrorism against Israel described above.
- Nazi/Holocaust Comparisons (Equating Israel or Zionists with Nazis): 80 incidents equated Israel, Zionists, or supporters of Israel with Nazis, or accused Israel of perpetrating a Holocaust against Palestinians. Examples included vandalism, such as public places spray-painted with phrases like “Zionism is Nazism,” or stickers, flyers, and signs with similar sentiments posted in public or held at protests.
- “From the River to the Sea” slogan: 197 incidents featured this phrase or a close variation of it. In its incident descriptions, ADL justifies inclusion on the grounds that the phrase is tantamount to a call for an end to the Jewish state. 166 of the 197 incidents (84%) occurred at anti-Israel rallies, where the phrase was chanted by protestors or displayed on signs and banners. Outside the rally context, the phrase appeared as graffiti on public parks and university buildings; as stickers placed in public spaces and on campuses; and on banners at student graduation ceremonies.
- Exclusionary Demands (Calls to expel or exclude Zionists from places or groups): 43 incidents were included because they expressed calls to expel or exclude Zionists from public spaces. These ranged from chants and signs at rallies, such as “Zionists, Zionists leave our home”; to direct social exclusion, such as a Jewish person receiving a text from an acquaintance ending the friendship because they were a Zionist; to chalk messages that read “We don’t want no Zionists here,” written on the ground outside a home displaying Israeli flags.
- General anti-Zionist Expressions: 281 incidents. These included signs, slogans, graffiti, and other expressions of statements such as “Zionism is terrorism,” “Crush Zionism,” “Zionism = Racism,” “Stop Zionism,” “End Zionism,” and “Zionism is cancer.”
Themes in hostile expression toward Zionists, Zionism, or Israel
No single theme accounts for more than a quarter of the 1,116 incidents. Themes are not exclusive: counts total more than 1,116, percentages more than 100%.
Of course, just because an incident directs its hostility at Zionism or Israel does not mean it is not antisemitic or of serious concern. Explicit expressions of support for terrorism, calls to expel Zionists (which would disproportionately affect American Jews), and the extreme demonization of Zionists create an environment that could lead to more frequent harassment, discrimination, and even violence targeting the Jewish community. There is also survey evidence of these dynamics: in AJC’s 2024 State of Antisemitism in America survey, about half of Jewish college students who noticed anti-Israel protests or encampments reported feeling unsafe on campus; it also found that 40% of American Jews reported avoiding publicly wearing or displaying things that would identify them as Jewish. These and other concerns must be taken seriously by anyone who works toward a society in which American Jews can thrive.
NCAR Analysis of Rallies in the ADL Audit
When people hear about incidents related to anti-Israel rallies, many think back to the wave of campus rallies and encampments that took place in 2024, or to some of the recent protests in front of synagogues. However, in 2025, only 165 of the anti-Israel rallies that ADL included in the Audit took place on campus, and only 28 took place at Jewish institutions like synagogues, schools, or Jewish community centers. The vast majority of anti-Israel rallies included in the Audit took place on streets, in parks, and at transportation hubs and government buildings. To be sure, the rally-related incidents on campus and at synagogues may have an outsized impact on Jewish campus and community life compared with a rally in a community park. But a clearer understanding of where the vast majority of rallies take place may be important when considering whether any policy responses are warranted, and if so, what form they should take.
The ADL Audit’s official number of incidents at anti-Israel rallies is 856, but our own analysis of the data shows 883.
Locations of anti-Israel rally incidents
78% of the 883 rally incidents occurred away from campuses and Jewish institutions.
What were incidents at these rallies like? According to ADL’s data, there were a handful of cases in which attendees physically confronted Jewish people: one in which a Jewish man was beaten up, one in which Jews were spat upon, and one in which rally-goers threw objects at a Jewish person. The ADL data includes only a few cases in which property belonging to Jews was vandalized. In about 20 cases, the Audit includes incidents in which Jewish people were directly harassed by rally-goers or protestors, including cases in which Jews were told to “go back to Europe,” called “inbred swine” or “fake Jews,” or called “Zionist pigs” without any knowledge of their beliefs about Israel at all.
The 28 rallies that took place in front of synagogues, Jewish schools, or other Jewish institutions were sometimes — but not always — in response to Israel-related programming happening inside. In some cases, the programming was as modest as a memorial for the October 7 attack, or a speaker from Israel describing the current situation in the country to synagogue members. Whatever the protestors’ intentions, staging a protest at a synagogue can have a chilling effect on synagogue life for all of a congregation’s members, whatever their personal beliefs about Israel. NCAR accordingly classifies these incidents as conflation: they treat Jewish institutions and their members as proxies for Israel. At the same time, the Audit’s methodology includes picketing of Jewish institutions “for their perceived or real support for Israel.” It would likely not include an incident where a synagogue was protested by individuals who felt the synagogue’s programming was insufficiently pro-Israel, even though such a protest could also have a chilling effect on the life of the congregants.
Those incidents aside, most rallies were included in the Audit because they featured language about Israel or Zionism — in the form of chants, signs, or speeches — that ADL deemed antisemitic. The categories below use the same definitions and examples introduced in the NCAR Analysis of ADL Audit Dataset section above, but here we report only the incidents that occurred in a rally context. Readers who skipped directly to this section should consult the NCAR Analysis of ADL Audit Dataset section for the texture and representative examples of what each category contains. A single rally may fall into multiple categories, so the total of the figures below will exceed the 883 rally incidents included in the Audit data.
- Terrorism (Explicit or implicit support for terrorism against Israel): 218 rallies.
- Kill Zionists (Calls for Zionists to be killed): None.
- Intifada (Calls for ‘intifada’): 124 rallies.
- Resistance (Expressions calling for ‘resistance’): 201 rallies.
- Nazi/Holocaust Comparisons (Equating Israel or Zionists with Nazis): 44 rallies.
- “From the River to the Sea” slogan: 166 rallies.
- Exclusionary Demands: 23 rallies.
- General anti-Zionist Expressions: 141 rallies.
Themes of hostile expression toward Zionists, Zionism, or Israel in anti-Israel rally incidents
Support for terrorism and calls for "resistance" are the most common themes at the 883 rally incidents. Themes are not exclusive: counts total more than 883, percentages more than 100%.
But some of these phrases may be open to multiple interpretations. “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” may be a call for the destruction of Israel, including through violence, and for some protestors it may even mean the physical expulsion of millions of Israeli Jews. For others, it might be a call for Palestinian self-determination, or an imprecise vision for political and social reform in Israel and the Occupied Territories that would allow Palestinians to thrive. This is an area in which further research is necessary.
Incidents on Campus
According to the ADL Audit, 583 antisemitic incidents occurred on college campuses in 2025. ADL codes 420 of these incidents, or 72%, as related to Israel or Zionism.
Campus incidents, by NCAR category
Hostile expression accounts for 246 of the 583 campus incidents (42%).
Number of Campuses
ADL provides the number of incidents that occurred on college campuses, but it does not provide a list of campuses where incidents occurred and the number of incidents at each. By examining the data, we were able to uncover a more comprehensive picture of the landscape of antisemitism on campus. Antisemitic incidents took place at 214 identifiable colleges and universities — about 8% of the estimated 2,600 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Education — though these include many campuses with large Jewish enrollment. A few dozen campus incidents were left confidential or took place at one or more unnamed “Jewish universities,” so 214 is the number of campuses that could be identified by name. Because the Audit records incidents that were reported to ADL rather than surveying institutions, 8% should be read as a floor rather than as an estimate of how many campuses saw an incident.[3]
A large majority of campuses in the ADL dataset (148 of 214, or 69%) experienced two or fewer incidents in 2025, and no campuses exceeded 15 incidents. Of course, depending on its severity and media coverage, even one incident on campus can negatively affect the campus climate for Jews.
Campuses by number of incidents
148 of the 214 campuses with at least one incident recorded one or two (69%).
Rallies on Campus
165 of ADL’s recorded campus incidents took place at anti-Israel rallies, representing a bit more than a quarter of all campus incidents. Approximately ten of these rallies included direct harassment of Jews or attempts to disrupt Jewish events; the rest were all included because of statements, chants, or slogans that appeared at the rallies.
Incidents at Student Housing
37 incidents took place in dormitories, residence halls, or fraternities. The vast majority of the incidents in those locations had nothing to do with Israel; instead, they were a combination of verbal or written harassment of Jewish students with references to Hitler, Nazis, or swastikas; Mezuzot torn from the doorway of Jewish students’ rooms; and people calling Jews antisemitic slurs. There were a handful of cases in which Israel or Zionism was referenced in incidents at campus residences. For example, an individual shouted “Free Palestine” and attempted to disrupt a party at a Jewish fraternity at California State University, Northridge, after being denied entry; at New York University, a Jewish student’s dorm room door was vandalized with “Free Palestine” and “Jew”; an individual held a sign in front of a Jewish fraternity at San Diego State University that read “Kill All Zionists”; and messages were left on the whiteboard outside of a student’s dorm room that read “Fuck Jews,” “Zionist Loosers [sic],” and “Fuck Israel Free Palestine.”
Antisemitic Incidents Unrelated to Israel
Of the 583 campus incidents in the ADL Audit, 163 (28%) had no Israel or Zionism connection. They included incidents such as swastikas drawn on whiteboards, Mezuzot torn from dorm doorways, and direct slurs against Jewish students.
Israel-Related Incidents
The remaining 420 campus incidents (72%) were tagged by ADL as Israel-related.
Classic antisemitic themes, white supremacist activity, and conflation
Within the Israel-related incidents we find the following themes:
- Conflation (Holding Jews responsible for Israel’s actions): 83 incidents.
- Co-occurrence (Antisemitism alongside anti-Israel messaging): 63 incidents.
- White Supremacist (White supremacist anti-Israel activity): 8 incidents.
- Miscellaneous/Confidential (Other antisemitic Israel-related tropes and confidential incidents): 15 incidents involved other antisemitic tropes, and ADL kept the details of a further 5 confidential.
Hostile expressions toward Zionists, Zionism, or Israel
The remaining 246 incidents consist of hostile expressions toward Zionists, Zionism, or Israel. The categories below use the same definitions and examples introduced in the NCAR Analysis of ADL Audit Dataset section above; here we report only the incidents that occurred on college campuses. Readers who skipped directly to this section should consult the NCAR Analysis of ADL Audit Dataset section for the texture and representative examples of each category. A single incident may fall into multiple categories, so the total of the figures below will exceed the 246 campus incidents in this category.
- Terrorism (Explicit or implicit support for terrorism against Israel): 58 incidents.
- Kill Zionists (Calls for Zionists to be killed): 6 incidents — small in number but notable for their explicitness, including a sign reading “Kill All Zionists” held in front of a Jewish fraternity at San Diego State University, and a YikYak post at Kent State University reading “Shoot all zionists.”
- Intifada (Calls for ‘intifada’): 51 incidents.
- Resistance (Expressions calling for ‘resistance’): 37 incidents.
- Nazi/Holocaust Comparisons (Equating Israel or Zionists with Nazis): 10 incidents.
- “From the River to the Sea” slogan: 61 incidents.
- Exclusionary Demands: 9 incidents.
- General anti-Zionist Expressions: 48 incidents.
Themes in campus hostile expression
"From the River to the Sea" is the most common theme in the 246 campus incidents. Themes are not exclusive: counts total more than 246, percentages more than 100%.
This is not to say that antisemitism is not a serious problem on campuses. Surveys of American Jewish students have shown rising levels of antisemitism on campus, and many students report feeling less safe — concerns that are real and that deserve to be taken seriously. At the same time, the ADL Audit’s own incident data does not, by itself, show that campus antisemitism is the scourge it is frequently portrayed to be in the media.
Conclusion
The Audit is built on a dataset which, upon close examination, yields important insights into the nature of antisemitism in this country. In this report we have revealed the amount of nuance and detail that exists within that dataset — nuance that, without this kind of work, remains locked away under the single general heading of “antisemitism.”
Readers who care about the wellbeing of the American Jewish community and want to fight antisemitism will recognize that some of the incidents catalogued in the Audit may not fit their own definitions of antisemitism. They will also recognize that even clearly antisemitic incidents vary in severity and in what they reveal about the problems facing our society. That is why the numbers deserve to be parsed below the top line of total incidents, and below the subcategories ADL already reports: harassment, vandalism, and assault; location type; whether an incident is related to Israel. They deserve to be broken down further, because the appropriate response to a public expression of opposition to Israel or Zionism may be very different from the response to a case of direct harassment of Jews.
By not breaking these incidents out into finer categories, we prevent the very people who could make a real difference — policymakers, educators, community leaders — from actually understanding the landscape of antisemitism in this country. And we prevent Jews themselves from understanding the nature of the challenges they face. The American Jewish community, and those who work alongside it, deserve an account of antisemitism that reflects its full complexity. That is what this report has tried to provide, and what future Audits could provide as well.
Notes
- See for example: Perceptions of Anti‐Semitism among American Jews, 2000–05: A Survey Analysis (Cohen, Political Psychology, 2010); and AJC Survey of Attitudes about Antisemitism, 2024 comparison (PDF). ↩
- Audit of Antisemitic Incidents 2023 | ADL. ↩
- National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, Table 105.50. ↩
