ADL: Anti-Semitism surged in 2017

(JNS)-The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States soared in 2017, according to the annual report by the Anti-Defamation League.

There were 1,986 acts classified as anti-Semitic in 2017, up 57 percent from 2016 at 1,267 and more than double the 2,015 total of 941. That makes 2017 the second-most anti-Semitic year since the ADL began tracking the incidents almost 40 years ago, and the highest-ever single-year spike.

"It had been trending in the right direction for a long time," Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of ADL, told The New York Times. "And then something changed."

However, included in the figures are the 160-plus bomb threats to Jewish community centers and Jewish institutions in the early part of 2017, which were discovered to be mainly carried out by a Jewish teenager in Israel.

Even without those threats, anti-Semitic incidents increased by 43 percent in 2017, with seven Jewish cemeteries vandalized, 19 anti-Jewish physical assaults, and 457 non-Jewish elementary and high schools experiencing anti-Semitic incidents, compared to 235 in 2016 and 114 in 2015.

The states reporting the most anti-Semitic incidents were those with large Jewish populations, including New York, New Jersey and California.