DENVER — In 2023, the Anti-Defamation League tracked the highest number of antisemitic-related incidents in the Mountain region since they began collecting the data in 1979.
The three-state region includes Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming.
The overwhelming number of incidents occurred in Colorado, with 198 reports out of the 242 reported in the region. The ADL attributes some of that to the fact that there is a larger Jewish population in Colorado than in the other two states.
On a larger scale, more than 8,000 antisemitic incidents occurred throughout the country -- a 140% increase from 2022. The incidents in the Mountain region outpaced the national average, with an increase of 190%.
After Oct. 7, when the conflict in Israel and Gaza began, the number of reported incidents skyrocketed. The 111 anti-Jewish incidents reported in the last three months of the year totaled more than either of the prior two years.
"It’s a confirmation of what we already knew," said Rabbi Joseph Black from Temple Emanuel in Denver. "In the past six or seven years, we have seen a documented rise in antisemitism, related to some of the political climate of our nation, and as a result, we have had to increase the security that we as a congregation have implemented."
Black said that especially after the conflict in Israel and Gaza began, there have been even more conversations and reports from congregation members.
"I’ve been a rabbi for 38 years and this has been a part of what we have always known. Recently, however, the number and the seriousness and the intensity of some of the antisemitic rhetoric have gone way up. So we have seen that," he said.
The Anti-Defamation League said that the number of incidents reported in 2024 is already over the number they received in the entirety of 2023. Four hundred reports so far have been filed with the ADL in Colorado.
"Things have just not slowed down, and it’s unfortunate," Scott Levin with the ADL said. "It’s also not just what is going on in the Jewish community, but unfortunately we are seeing hate in all people on the rise."
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