The Los Angeles skyline. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Hate crimes targeting Jews in Los Angeles have risen precipitously over the last two years, data published by the city’s police department this week revealed.

Antisemitic hate crimes were up 60.5% over 2018 in the nation’s second-largest city, and represented the largest single category in 2019 — 69 of 322 total hate crimes reported by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), according to its figures.

The increase in attacks on Jews comes in the context of a 10-percent rise in overall hate crimes in Los Angeles during the last year.

“Year after year, we have seen hate rising in our city and across our nation, and we have not done enough to keep communities safe,” City Councilman David Ryu — who requested the data — said during a meeting on Wednesday of the council’s public safety committee.

“We need to take these numbers seriously, because behind every one of these numbers is a religious minority, a person of color, a transgender or LGBTQ person suffering in fear,” Ryu told the meeting. “This is not what Los Angeles should be about. We should be increasing our funding and protection for vulnerable communities and be proactive about hate crime prevention.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), there were 1,879 recorded antisemitic attacks against Jews in the US nationally during 2018.