The FBI Misreports Hate Crimes Against Jews
Jews were the victims of most religion-based hate crimes in 2024 according to a recently released FBI report (https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#). This distressing statistic, reported year after year, grabs attention but it is misleading. It derives from the FBI’s hate crimes reporting guidelines which stipulate the sole motivation for hate crimes against Jews is religious bias. According to these guidelines, the murderers of Sarah Milgrom and Yaron Lischinsky, shot to death in May at the Jewish Museum in Washington D.C., and Karen Diamond, firebombed fatally the next month at a gathering for the hostages in Boulder, were motivated by hatred of Judaism. Yet the killers yelled “Free Palestine” during or after the attacks and nothing about the religious beliefs of the victims. Yaron wasn’t even Jewish. The FBI’s reporting guidelines should better reflect why assailants commit hate crimes against Jews.
The federal 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act led the FBI to add hate crimes to its Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Under this program, local law enforcement agencies submit crime data to the Bureau based on its guidelines. Local agencies are directed to put hate crimes into one of six bias categories that are consistent with the Act: race/ethnicity/ancestry; religion; sexual orientation; disability; gender; and gender identity.
Hate crimes targeting Jews belong in the religious bias category according to the FBI’s guidelines (https://le.fbi.gov/file-repository/hate-crime-data-collection-guidelines-and-training-manual.pdf/view). But were black-hatted Haredim on the streets of Brooklyn sucker-punched because they followed too many of the 613 mitzvot or rather because they are outwardly Jewish? What about the secular Israelis assaulted at a West LA sidewalk café overheard speaking Hebrew? Did keffiyeh-clad protestors on campuses surround and bully Jews because they were caught davening? Armed sentries guard synagogues but also secular JCCs, Jewish day schools, AIPAC confabs and pro-Israel rallies.
The problem with the FBI’s reporting is that it perpetuates the myth that Jewish identity is based only on religion. Yet most Jews are not even affiliated with synagogues. The FBI should acknowledge that assailants may attack individual Jews not only because of their religious beliefs but also because they are part of the Jewish people, sharing such characteristics as ethnicity, ancestry, genetics, cultural traditions, and connection to Israel. Antisemites may or may not hate Judaism but they certainly hate Jews. They want to destroy Jews and the Jewish people.
The consequences of the FBI tying Jewish-targeted hate crimes exclusively to religion are not trivial. The Bureau’s reporting feeds the antizionist narrative that Jews are simply co-religionists and not a people entitled to statehood. Educators, podcasters, journalists, and actors who believe what defines Jews is their religion proclaim their demonization of Israel is a political statement, not a broadside against the Jewish people. The FBI bolsters the claim of antizionists that they are not antisemitic: they don’t oppose Jews, just the Jewish state.
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in activities receiving federal financial support based on “race, color, or national origin” but not on account of religion. The basis for prosecuting Jewish hate crimes under Title VI is inconsistent with how the FBI reports them. Citing those reports, attorneys for Jewish hate crime defendants can argue their clients are not prosecutable under Title VI.
Corporations and organizations often authorize affinity- or identity-based Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) which enable employees to utilize resources of their employers. Believing Jewish ERGs to be religion-based, employers such as Microsoft have denied them official recognition. It took the threat of legal action for Microsoft to approve its Jewish ERG. By being denied the anti-bias protections of official ERG status, Jewish employees are hampered in their efforts to combat workplace discrimination.
DEI officers often consider Jews to be “white” people rather than members of a historically oppressed minority. Jews, therefore, do not benefit from the antidiscrimination protections DEI affords carte blanche to members of BIPOC groups (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color). DEI administrators, recognizing only Jews’ shared religion, may see their responsibility limited to making sure kosher foods are available in dining facilities and special accommodations are made for Jewish holidays.
The FBI can help remedy rather than promote the popular misunderstanding of Jewish identity as solely religion based. The “race/ethnicity/ancestry” bias category of the Bureau’s reporting guidelines refers to “negative attitudes…toward a group of persons who possess common physical characteristics, … whose members identify with each other through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, common culture (often including a shared religion) and/or ideology that stresses common ancestry, … or based on their common lineage or descent.” (https://le.fbi.gov/file-repository/hate-crime-data-collection-guidelines-and-training-manual.pdf/view). The “race/ethnicity/ancestry” bias category offers a broader and therefore more accurate explanation than religious bias alone for why assailants attack Jews.
A more accurate FBI report would help the public to better understand how much likelier Jews are to become victims of hate crimes than any other group. By properly categorizing hate crimes targeting Jews, the FBI will discourage facile comparisons to religious groups. Rather it will encourage more meaningful comparisons with the other two most targeted bias groups: blacks/African Americans, and sexual orientation or LGBT+ people. Last year members of these groups were the victims of 3,672 and 2,838 hate crimes, respectively, compared to 2,237 Jewish hate crime targets. While fewer Jews were attacked, their smaller population base meant they were much more likely to be victims on a per capita basis. Jews were 3.6 times more likely to be victimized than African Americans and 2.8 times more likely than LGBT+ people based on Pew Research Center population data.
The FBI’s annual hate crime reporting obscures the actual risks Jews face while promoting a false narrative about Jewish identity. Among the last words Sarah, Yaron and Karen heard were their assailants bellowing “Free Palestine.” Religion did not factor into their deaths. To honor their memories, the FBI should characterize their crimes properly in its next annual report. It is time for the FBI to make a change.
