Antisemitic hate crimes surged across New York City in January, accounting for the majority of all reported bias incidents, even as the NYPD touted historic declines in gun violence.

According to NYPD data, antisemitic incidents jumped 182 percent in January 2026 compared with the same month a year earlier. The department recorded 31 anti-Jewish hate crimes last month, up from 11 in January 2025, making Jews the most frequently targeted group by a wide margin.

Overall, the NYPD’s hate crimes task force investigated 58 bias incidents in January, a 152 percent increase from the 23 cases recorded a year ago. Anti-Jewish incidents alone accounted for more than half of all reported hate crimes, despite Jews making up an estimated 10 percent of the city’s population.

The next most-targeted groups trailed far behind. The department reported seven anti-Muslim incidents, up from zero a year earlier, five incidents targeting Asians, and five related to sexual orientation. Smaller numbers of cases involved religion more broadly (3), Black New Yorkers (2), gender (2), age (1), Hispanics (1), and whites (1).

The spike in antisemitic incidents comes as Mamdani, who has publicly called for New York City to divest from Israel Bonds and has said he would seek the arrest of Israel’s prime minister if he entered the city, began his term as mayor on Jan. 1. The NYPD statistics do not draw any causal connection to political leadership, but the timing is likely to intensify criticism from Jewish community leaders and elected officials already warning about rising antisemitism citywide.

The hate crime figures appeared at the end of an NYPD press release otherwise focused on crime reductions. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the department delivered “the fewest shooting incidents, victims and murders in recorded history” for the month of January, citing 40 shooting incidents and 47 victims — both lower than previous all-time lows.

“Murder declined to its lowest level for January, shattering the previous record,” the department said, noting that Manhattan and Staten Island went the entire month without a homicide.
Retail theft was down 16 percent, according to the NYPD, and crime in school safety zones dropped by more than 50 percent under what the department described as a “data-driven strategy.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)