A newly released AP-NORC poll reveals that a large number of Jewish adults across the United States feel increasingly unsafe, with the majority reporting their sense of personal security has declined since Hamas carried out its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The survey, conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, documents a significant shift in how Jewish Americans view their own safety during a period when more Americans have grown critical of the close U.S. relationship with Israel. The ongoing war in Gaza has fueled protests across the country over Israel’s military campaign against Palestinians, and has coincided with a rise in violent incidents targeting Jewish communities in the United States.
The results paint a picture of widespread vulnerability among Jewish adults at a time when bipartisan support for Israel is weakening and sharp disagreements are emerging — even within the Jewish community itself — over what should and should not be considered antisemitism, especially when it involves protests directed at Israel.
Approximately 3 in 10 Jewish adults surveyed said that they or a member of their household had experienced some form of discrimination or attack in the past year — including physical assault, verbal abuse, online harassment, or property damage — specifically because of their Jewish identity.
Hal Guberman, a 30-year-old from New Jersey, now thinks twice before wearing a kippah in public after a stranger in a passing vehicle shouted a slur at him while he was walking down the street last year.
“That person, they don’t know anything about me. They don’t know my politics. They don’t know my beliefs. They don’t know my viewpoints,” Guberman said. “But they saw me being visibly Jewish, and they made an opinion about me.”
Roughly 6 in 10 Jewish adults consider antisemitism an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in the country today. That concern is even stronger among those who describe themselves as emotionally close to Israel.
When asked about their current sense of safety, about one-third of Jewish adults say they feel “very” or “somewhat” safe as a Jewish person in the U.S., while another third say they feel “very” or “somewhat” unsafe. The remaining roughly 3 in 10 say they feel neither safe nor unsafe. Jewish adults who have a strong connection to Israel, or who identify as Jewish by religion rather than by cultural or ethnic background alone, are more likely to report feeling threatened.
About 6 in 10 Jewish adults say they feel less safe now than before the October 2023 Hamas attack, a figure that rises to about 7 in 10 among those who practice Judaism religiously. Around one-third say their sense of safety has remained about the same, and very few say they actually feel safer.
Erin Baskin, a 36-year-old from Pennsylvania, said the October 7 attacks did not change how safe she feels because she had already encountered prejudice long before that day.
“I’ve always grown up with antisemitism,” she said. “Among the rural community I’m in, they conflate Judaism with Zionism all the time. Unfortunately, that’s kind of been my experience. It’s nothing new.”
The survey also found that many Jewish adults have become more cautious about visibly identifying themselves as Jewish since the October 7 attacks. About 4 in 10 say they are less likely than before to wear, carry, or display items that might signal their Jewish identity. About half say their behavior in this regard has not changed, while roughly 1 in 10 say they are actually more likely to display their identity.
Caitlin Rosendorn, a 24-year-old from Illinois, said she used to regularly wear a Star of David necklace but now hesitates, concerned that others might mistakenly assume it signals support for Israel’s military actions against Palestinians.
“I don’t want to wear a Star of David to work if that’s going to alienate somebody who sees the Star of David as a symbol of Israel as opposed to a symbol of Judaism,” she said. “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about my views.”
About 1 in 10 Jewish adults reported that they or someone in their household had been physically assaulted in the past year because of their Jewish background. A similar proportion reported having property damaged or destroyed. Around 2 in 10 said they or a household member had been called a slur, threatened, or verbally harassed, and a similar share reported experiencing online harassment or cyberbullying. In total, about 3 in 10 Jewish adults said they or someone in their household had faced at least one of these incidents.
Jewish adults who attend religious services at least once a month were considerably more likely than the broader Jewish adult population to report experiencing harassment or attacks. Nearly half of frequent attendees said they or a household member had faced verbal harassment, a similar share reported online harassment, and about one-quarter reported physical attacks or property damage — a finding that reflects a pattern of targeted incidents at Jewish religious spaces in recent years.
Jon Kessler, 38, of California, who was raised in the Conservative tradition of Judaism, said many non-Jewish Americans may not realize how much security planning goes into Jewish community gatherings.
“Most people when they go to church don’t have armed security, but every synagogue has an armed security guard,” Kessler said. “My son’s Jewish daycare has an armed security guard.”
Protests connected to Israel-related events — including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress and appearances by campus speakers viewed as either too supportive or too critical of Israel — became more frequent in the wake of the Gaza war.
Jewish adults themselves are split on whether anti-Israel protests amount to antisemitism. About half say such protests are not a form of antisemitism, while roughly 4 in 10 say they are.
More than 73,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since Israel launched its military response to the Hamas attack in 2023, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which does not separate civilian from militant deaths.
About two-thirds of Jewish adults say criticizing Israel’s military conduct does not constitute antisemitism, though those with a strong emotional attachment to Israel are more likely to view such criticism as antisemitic. Few Jewish adults, however, say that criticizing Israel for any reason at all is inherently antisemitic.
Non-Jewish Americans are generally less likely to label anti-Israel protests or criticism of Israel’s military actions as antisemitism — but they are also far more likely to say they simply don’t have an opinion.
There is broader agreement among Jewish adults on certain behaviors they consider clearly antisemitic: vandalizing synagogues or Jewish-owned businesses over Israel’s actions, denying the Holocaust, blaming American Jews for Israel’s conduct, arguing Israel should not exist as a Jewish state, or claiming that Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. Non-Jewish Americans show less consensus on these questions, with many saying they are unsure.
Amanda Goldsmith, 53, who lives in Chicago, said she is disturbed by how openly antisemitic views are now being expressed online — content she once believed was confined to extremist corners of the internet.
“Now, it seems like there was an undercurrent, and it’s a free-for-all, and everyone is free to say what they want,” she said. “The freedom with which people say horrible things about Jewish people is appalling.”
The AP-NORC poll was conducted June 11-17 and included 3,040 adults overall, with 1,022 identifying as Jewish. Respondents were drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to represent the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points for all adults and plus or minus 5.0 percentage points for Jewish adults.
