New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the Unisphere in the Queens borough of New York City, US, Nov. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper

Antisemitic incidents in New York City increased 71 percent in May from the same month last year, according to newly released police data.

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday published its crime figures for last month and all of 2026 through May. According to the data, 41 confirmed antisemitic hate crimes struck the Jewish community last month, up from 24 in May 2025, even as major crime overall decreased to historic lows and law enforcement officers took thousands of guns off the streets.

Perhaps most striking, more than half of all confirmed hate crimes for May, or 60 percent, were antisemitic, despite Jewish New Yorkers making up only 10 percent of the city’s population.

Police said that Muslims were targeted in five hate crimes last month, compared to three in 2025.

As for reported (or unconfirmed) hate crimes, the data showed Jews were targeted 60 times last month, making up a staggering 61 percent of the total number of such incidents.

The NYPD collects and reports both reported and actually confirmed hate crimes.

Last month, the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside Israel experienced a series of antisemitic vandalism incidents, including swastika graffiti discovered in Queens parks and on Jewish-owned properties.

Meanwhile, masses of anti-Israel demonstrators marched through the heavily Jewish Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn and protested outside Young Israel of Midwood synagogue over its involvement in selling land they said was “stolen” for being located in the West Bank.

Video circulated online from the protest appeared to show a female demonstrator, wearing a surgical mask and a red keffiyeh scarf around her shoulders, assaulting a Jewish girl by grabbing her hair from behind as she attempted to move through the crowd to get home. When a group of teenagers near the incident decried the assault, a swarm of hooded protesters confronted them, pushing and squaring shoulders in an apparent effort to dare a response and threaten more force.

During a similar demonstration days earlier at a Manhattan synagogue, activists held signs and chanted slogans that went beyond criticism of Israel, seemingly calling for the death and expulsion of Jews and, in some cases, support for US-designated terrorist groups.

“Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” “Rapists,” and “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone” were among the insults screamed by the protesters, some of whom also waved flags belonging to Hezbollah.

So far in 2026, there have been 152 confirmed antisemitic hate crimes in New York City, up 6 percent from the first five months of last year.

By comparison, there have been 17 confirmed hate crimes against Muslims, 18 against Black people, and 9 against Asians over the same period.

Antisemitic hate crimes have been surging in New York City since the election of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who assumed office on Jan. 1.

While the city has experienced rising antisemitism since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, the change in climate following Mamdani’s election has been especially palpable, Jewish advocacy groups have said. On his first day in office, for example, Mamdani voided the city government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, lifted the ban on contracts with companies boycotting Israel, and modified key provisions of an executive order directing law enforcement to monitor anti-Israel protests held near synagogues.

“From swastikas appearing on homes and in parks, to increased anti-Israeli demonstrations, Mayor Mamdani has created a climate in which bigotry is allowed to flourish,” Rabbi Mark Wildes, director and founder of the Manhattan Jewish Experience organization, told The Algemeiner earlier this month. “His irresponsible rhetoric calling Israel an ‘apartheid’ state committing ‘genocide’ only emboldens antisemites to target Jews across the city.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.