[The Federalist] The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s newly released hate crime statistics show that Jews, who make up approximately 1.8 percent of the U.S. population, were overwhelmingly the most targeted in anti-religious hate crimes in 2019.The FBI’s report says 60.2 percent of the 1,715 victims of anti-religious hate crimes in 2019 were targeted based on the offenders’ anti-Jewish bias. This percentage is up from 56.9 percent of victims motivated by offenders’ anti-Jewish bias. The next most frequently targeted group in the anti-religious category are Muslims, at about 13.2 percent of the hate crimes recorded in 2019.
While racial/ethnic/ancestral hate crimes have dropped slightly since 2018, anti-religious hate crimes were up from 18.7 percent in 2018 to 20.1 percent in 2019. In total, the FBI recorded 8,812 victims of hate crimes in the United States in 2019.
Earlier in the year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio came under fire for comments singling out Jewish communities for gathering despite COVID-19 lockdown orders.
"My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed," he wrote. "I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period."