News coverage and New York leaders have misread the NYPD’s newly released January 2026 anti‑Jewish hate crime data. That month is not especially alarming — but the longer‑term trends tell a more troubling story.
NYPD recently released its initial tally of hate crimes investigations in NYC for the month of January 2026. Across the city, we saw 58 hate crimes. Thirty-one targeted Jews — a little over half. The other 27 were split between other vulnerable populations.
Every anti-Jewish hate crime is unacceptable. But was January 2026 a particularly high month for anti-Jewish hate crime in NYC? Not really. Over the past two years, the NYPD reported an average of 28 hate crimes targeting Jews each month.* So, while January of 2026, with 31 incidents, was a little on the high side, it was still within the range of a normal month.
In fact, the number of anti-Jewish hate crimes in January 2026 was a significant decline from the number we had seen just the month before. In December 2025 there were 40 anti-Jewish hate crimes.
There is one particular number that has some New Yorkers feeling very uneasy: The 31 incidents in NYC in January are a massive, 182% increase over the number of incidents in NYC one year before, in January 2025. Jewish and non-Jewish leaders alike have spoken out about how disturbing this spike is.
182% is an extreme number, but it’s easy to see why the increase was so dramatic: With only 11 incidents recorded, January 2025 was the single lowest month for anti-Jewish hate crimes in the past two years. From such a low baseline, almost any return to the recent average would register as a triple-digit percentage increase.
So I am not concerned about the 182% number.
But I am concerned about something else. Over the past five years, the pattern is unmistakable: the average number of anti-Jewish hate crimes per month is rising. Average monthly totals of anti-Jewish hate crimes have risen from 17.3 in 2021, to 23.7 in 2022, to 26.2 in 2023, and 28.8 in 2024, dipping only slightly to 27.2 in 2025 — still ten more incidents per month than in 2021.
By contrast, the trendline for bias incidents targeting other vulnerable populations runs in the opposite direction. Yearly averages fell from 30.9 incidents per month in 2021, to 30.5 in 2022, 28.3 in 2023, 27.6 in 2024, and 21.5 in 2025.
New York City has a problem with antisemitic hate incidents. But Jews are not suddenly less safe just because the NYPD has released its January 2026 figures. To understand antisemitism — and to develop strategies to fight it — we need a longer view than any single data point can provide.
*Data compiled from monthly NYPD press releases.