‘Deeply troubling’ how disproportionately Jews targeted in San Francisco, ADL says

Of the 14 hate crimes that San Francisco recorded from Jan. 1 to June 30 this year, six (42.9%) have involved alleged religious bias—all of them against Jews, according to San Francisco Police Department data.

All six involved graffiti, one of which targeted a synagogue and another the government, per the official statistics, which do not record any hate crimes in January. Three targeted elementary or secondary schools.

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Jews make up about 2% of the residents of the city’s metro area, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study.

In 2025, the city recorded 45 hate crimes, which suggests hate crimes are on pace to be down 37.8% this year compared to last, or factoring in that 20 of the 45 hate crimes last year came in the first six months, this year is on pace to be down 29.3%.

But anti-Jewish hate crimes appear to be on the rise. In 2025, 10 of the hate crimes (22%) targeted Jews. So far this year, Jews were targets of almost twice that percentage of overall hate crimes.

“While it’s encouraging that overall hate crimes in San Francisco have declined this year, it’s deeply troubling that the Jewish community continues to be disproportionally targeted,” Marc Levine, central Pacific region director at the Anti-Defamation League, told JNS.

“Jews make up a small fraction of San Francisco’s population, yet anti-Jewish bias accounted for nearly half of all hate crimes reported so far this year, up from about one in five last year,” he said.

He added that the data aligns with the ADL’s statewide and national statistics.

The San Francisco Police Department told JNS that it “does not tolerate hate crime and racism of any kind.”

“No one should be targeted because of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or any other shared characteristics,” it said. It added that it “takes these incidents seriously and investigates them diligently.”

In 2025, three of the anti-Jewish incidents targeted elementary or secondary schools, two were at restaurants and one at a synagogue. One was a simple assault, and the police department categorized the other nine as “destruction/damage/vandalism.”

Two involved Nazi swastika symbols, four were graffiti and one involved damage to a vehicle, per police data.

In 2025, four (.9%) other hate crimes were based on religion—all of those four targeted Muslims.

Of 52 hate crimes in San Francisco in 2024, all 13 (25%) of those based on religion targeted Jews, according to police data, which didn’t record a single anti-Muslim hate crime. There was one (1.9%) anti-Arab incident. Two of the anti-Jewish hate crimes involved intimidation.

And of 24 hate crimes in the city in October—the month of the Hamas-led attacks—November and December in 2023, 15 (62.5%) targeted Jews, including a robbery, three aggravated assaults and three intimidations.

One recorded anti-Jewish vandalism hate crime in October 2023 alone had 21 victims.

From October to December, 2023, one (4.2%) incident was anti-Muslim and one (4.2%) was anti-Arab.

Of the 135 hate crimes recorded in San Francisco since Oct. 1, 2023, 44 (32.6%) targeted Jews and five (3.7%) targeted Muslims and two (1.5%) targeted Arabs.

According to Pew data, Muslims make up about half of the population that Jews do in the San Francisco metro area, suggesting that Jews have been about 214% more likely to be victims of hate crimes in the city since October 2023 than Muslims have been.

Teresa Drenick, northern California regional director at the American Jewish Committee, told JNS that “while it is certainly welcome news that the overall number of hate crimes has decreased, it is alarming that the percentage of those crimes targeting the Jewish community has risen dramatically.”

“We appreciate that both the police department and the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office have demonstrated their commitment to ensuring safety of the city’s Jewish community,” Drenick said.

Karen Stiller, senior director of Jewish affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, told JNS that “it appears antisemitism in the Bay Area is becoming more aggressive and individual incidents more dangerous, even as rates overall may be declining.”

“This is an inevitable consequence of extreme rhetoric becoming more normalized in public discourse,” Stiller told JNS. “We all need to be vigilant, and civic leaders, elected officials and others with a public platform have a particular responsibility to turn down the temperature.”

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