A new analysis of Seattle Police Department data has revealed a striking disparity in hate crimes targeting the city’s Jewish community, with Jews facing a per-capita rate nearly eight times higher than Muslims and Arabs since 2023.

Seattle recorded 384 hate crimes during the period examined, including 35 targeting Jews and nine targeting Muslims or Arabs. Using Pew Research Center estimates that Jews account for roughly 1% of adults in the Seattle metro area while Muslims account for about 2%, a Jewish resident was approximately 7.8 times more likely per capita to be targeted in a reported hate crime. The calculation combines Seattle Police figures with metro-area population estimates, making it an indication of the scale of the disparity rather than a precise population-wide rate.

The gap became especially pronounced in 2025. Seattle police recorded 12 hate crimes targeting Jews that year compared with just one targeting Arabs or Muslims. When the department’s broader categories of hate-related activity are included, Jews were targeted in 50 incidents, compared with 22 involving Arabs or Muslims. In January alone, four hate crimes targeted Jews, compared with one targeting Arabs or Muslims.

Seattle distinguishes between hate crimes, crimes containing a secondary “bias element,” and non-criminal biased incidents such as protected hateful speech. Since 2023, Jews were also disproportionately represented in the latter category: police logged 58 biased incidents targeting Jews compared with 20 targeting Muslims and Arabs. Police officials cautioned that hate crimes across communities are traditionally underreported because victims may fear retaliation, distrust authorities or simply not know how to report them.

“The numbers are absolutely alarming, but alarm doesn’t help,” Randy Kessler, executive director of StandWithUs Northwest, told media, urging Jews to report incidents, file complaints and demand equal treatment from officials.

The Seattle figures mirror a broader national problem. FBI statistics for 2024 show that anti-Jewish bias accounted for 69% of all religion-based single-bias hate-crime offenses reported nationwide, compared with 9.3% motivated by anti-Muslim bias.

More recent ADL data show that although the overall number of antisemitic incidents nationwide fell in 2025, the 6,274 incidents recorded remained five times higher than a decade earlier. Physical assaults reached their highest level in the organization’s tracking history, and three people were killed in antisemitic attacks. Nearly half of all antisemitic incidents that year contained elements related to Israel or Zionism, though ADL explicitly distinguishes legitimate criticism of Israel and pro-Palestinian activism from antisemitism.