A picture of the scene the day after an hours-long gun battle around a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey, Dec. 11, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Lloyd Mitchell.

A top American Jewish umbrella group expressed concern on Monday over the findings of a new Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) report that showed that Jews were disproportionately targeted by hate crimes in the US.

“Today’s FBI’s annual report on hate crimes statistically demonstrates what many American Jews know well: the number of incidents of Jew-hatred across the country continues to rise,” the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said in a statement.

“In 2019, the number of antisemitic hate crimes increased 14 percent and were over 60 percent of all hate crimes committed based on religion,” it added. “Indeed, these statistics are likely underreported, as the FBI’s data is based on voluntary reporting by local law enforcement.”

“The fact that a people who represent a small minority of the American population is subjected to such a degree of hate demonstrates that far more needs to be done to defend Jewish civil rights and to educate Americans about the anti-Jewish sentiment present in our country,” the Conference of Presidents declared.

It went on to vow that it would “continue to marshal the efforts of our member organizations and enlist others across the country to protect Jewish persons, institutions and dignity.”

“We call upon lawmakers and law enforcement at the local and national levels to recognize the threat being presented to American Jews, to work together to ensure that our community’s safety is maintained, and to take measures to counter this dangerous phenomenon, including by adopting the IHRA definition of antisemitism (with examples),” it concluded.