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<\/a><\/p>\nDemonstrators hold US and Israeli flags during a rally in Central Park marking 150 days since hostages were taken in attack on Israel on March 10, 2024 in New York City. (Noam Galai\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The finding marked no change over the previous year, suggesting that American Jews could be settling into a distressing new normal in the aftermath of Oct. 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings aren\u2019t getting markedly better,\u201d said Ted Deutch, the CEO of the AJC, in an interview. \u201cI don\u2019t think that we can afford to accept it as a baseline. We can\u2019t accept that, and America shouldn\u2019t accept that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surveying 1,222 American Jewish adults from Sept. 26 to Oct. 9, the AJC found a plateau in several indicators of sentiment.<\/p>\n
Overall, 55% of American Jews reported avoiding specific behaviors in 2025 due to fear of antisemitism, including steering clear of certain events and refraining from wearing or posting things online that would identify them as Jewish.<\/p>\n
The finding also marked no change since 2024, when 56% of Jews reported changing their behavior for fear of antisemitism, but was up from 46% in 2023 and 38% in 2022.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s respondents were also asked if they felt \u201cless safe\u201d as a result of several high-profile recent antisemitic attacks, including the arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s home in April; the deadly shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., in May; and the firebombing of a demonstration for the Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, in June.<\/p>\n
About a quarter of respondents said the attacks had made them feel \u201ca great deal\u201d less safe, while 31% responded \u201ca fair amount\u201d and 32% responded \u201ca little.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overall, according to the report, two-thirds of respondents said that they believed Jews in the United States were less secure than a year ago.<\/p>\n
Deutch said the findings of the group\u2019s latest report should serve not only as a warning for Jews, but as a \u201cwarning sign of the cracks in the foundation of our society\u201d for the wider public.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about more than just what\u2019s happening to Jews,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always been first, the Jews have always been a canary in the coal mine, and we have to take this seriously. The broader community has to take this seriously for the benefit, not just of our Jewish community, but for our society and our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the first time, the AJC also asked American Jews whether they approved of the way President Donald Trump was responding to antisemitism in the country.<\/p>\n
Roughly two-thirds of respondents said they disapproved of Trump\u2019s actions, though views split sharply along partisan lines, with 84% of Jewish Democrats disapproving of Trump\u2019s response at least somewhat compared to 9% of Jewish Republicans.<\/p>\n
The survey comes as some Jewish leaders have lamented what they have described as the inefficacy of efforts to combat antisemitism.<\/p>\n
Last month at the Second International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, political theorist Yoram Hazony decried what he described as an \u201can extremely high level of incompetence by the entire anti-Semitism-industrial complex.\u201d Bret Stephens, the right-leaning Jewish New York Times columnist, argued in an address last week that the Jewish community should abandon its efforts to combat antisemitism and instead invest in strengthening Jewish life.<\/p>\n
For Deutch, the decision between combatting antisemitism and strengthening Jewish education and infrastructure was a false choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a trade-off. We can\u2019t afford to choose one or the other,\u201d said Deutch. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the luxury of deciding that we\u2019re either going to invest in more education for our leaders and for ourselves and helping to create the next generation of well educated Jewish leaders, or engaging with the broader community and leaders across the broader community about the scourge of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n