ADL: Boulder Firebombing Contributes to Record Year for Antisemitic Assaults and Attacks in the United States

Colorado ranks 10^th among states for reports of anti-Jewish hate and the total number of reports in 2025 is the third highest on record, according to ADL report

Denver, CO, May 6, 2026 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today released its annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, finding that 2025 was one of the most violent and deadly years for Jews in the United States. Among the year’s most devastating incidents was the June 1, 2025, firebombing attack in Boulder targeting a group supporting the release of hostages held by Hamas, which led to the death of an 82-year-old woman. In Colorado, while overall reported antisemitic incidents declined in 2025, the state ranked 10th in the nation for total incidents and experienced the highest number of anti-Jewish assaults ever recorded for the state.

“The decrease in reported antisemitic incidents in Colorado last year provides cold comfort to Jewish Coloradans who experienced one of the most violent years on record,” said Susan Rona, ADL Mountain States Regional Director. “Behind every incident, there is a person whose loved one was killed or injured, leaders of a synagogue who had to clean up broken glass from smashed windows, or a Jewish person who had to constantly look over their shoulder and wonder if they will be harassed for simply being Jewish. We will do everything possible to ensure this does not become the new normal in our state.”

ADL recorded a total of 167 incidents of antisemitic assault, vandalism and harassment in Colorado in 2025. This is a 40 percent decrease over the record high of 279 incidents in 2024. Despite the decrease, Colorado experienced its third-highest antisemitic incident total since ADL began tracking this data in 1979. The seven incidents of assault recorded in Colorado last year eclipsed the previous record of three, and incidents involving vandalism and assault remained at near record totals.

ADL recorded the following types of incidents in Colorado in 2025:

• 7 incidents of assault
• 82 incidents of vandalism
• 78 incidents of harassment

Among the reports the ADL Mountain States Region received for Colorado in 2025:

• A student wrapped a cord around a Jewish classmate’s neck and pulled the student from their chair while calling them a “kike.”

• An individual called a visibly Jewish woman at a laundromat “F***ing kike,” and choked and shoved the victim causing serious injuries.

• An individual threw rocks through a glass door and windows of a synagogue.

• A mezuzah was torn from the doorframe of a Jewish family’s home and destroyed.

• An individual wrote “Jew” on a whiteboard outside a Jewish student’s dorm room at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Nationally, there were 6,274 incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment and vandalism in 2025, an average of 17 incidents per day. While this total represents a 33 percent decrease from 2024, it remains considerably higher than the total in years prior to the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre in Israel, and ranks as the third-highest year for antisemitic incidents (after 2023 and 2024), since ADL began tracking in 1979.

Even as overall incidents decreased, physical assaults increased nationwide by 4 percent, and incidents of assault involving a deadly weapon increased by 39 percent. Moreover, three people were murdered in antisemitic attacks this past year: including a victim of the June 1^st firebombing attack in Boulder, and two victims in the May 21, 2025, shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

“Our 2025 Audit, which shows it was one of the most violent years for American Jews on record is a reminder of how dramatically the threat landscape has shifted. Numbers that would have shocked us five years ago are now our floor,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director. “People are being murdered because of antisemitism on American soil, and thousands more are threatened. ADL will not stop until that baseline changes.”

National Findings

• Assaults: 203 incidents were categorized as assault, an increase of 4 percent compared to 2024 (196 incidents).
  • Incidents of assault involving a deadly weapon increased to 32 in 2025 from 23 in 2024.
  • At least 300 people were victimized by incidents of assault. It was the first year since 2019 during which Jewish people were murdered in the United States in antisemitic attacks.
• Vandalism: 2,068 incidents (a 21-percent decrease from 2024) were categorized as vandalism.
• Harassment: 4,003 incidents (a 39-percent decrease from 2024) were categorized as harassment.
• Geographic Reach: Antisemitic incidents occurred in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The states with the highest levels of incidents were New York (1,160), California (817) and New Jersey (687).

“Behind every one of these incidents is a real person: a family threatened at their synagogue, a rabbi attacked on the street, a student harassed on campus,” said Oren Segal, ADL Senior Vice President for Counter-Extremism and Intelligence. “2025 brought some of the most violent antisemitic attacks in recent memory. Even as overall incidents declined, the surge in physical assaults is a stark reminder that a historically high level of antisemitism puts Jewish lives at risk. The safety of Jewish communities depends on our collective willingness to meet this moment with urgency, which is what we are doing every day at ADL.”

A Notable Decrease in Overall Incidents and Yet, No American Community is Spared

Incidents at K-12 Schools Remain Stable
Unlike most other locations, incidents at non-Jewish K-12 schools remained almost similar in 2025 (825) compared to 2024 (860). While incidents at other types of locations are more often driven by organized group activity, both from the anti-Israel and white supremacist spaces, at K-12 schools, most incidents involve individual, peer-to-peer behavior, such as antisemitic harassment or students vandalizing classrooms with swastikas. ADL’s litigation team has been pursuing several cases against K-12 schools, including against the Concord-Carlisle Regional School District, which recently came to a close with the school district agreeing to take steps to address antisemitism.

Factors that explain the decrease in antisemitic incidents in 2025:  

• Incidents on college and university campuses saw the steepest decline of any location type in part due to colleges addressing antisemitism on their campuses. In 2025, ADL recorded 583 antisemitic incidents on college campuses, which is 66 percent lower than in 2024 (1,694 incidents).
  
  
  • Combating campus antisemitism is a major priority for ADL. Since its 2024 launch, ADL’s Campus Antisemitism Report Card has driven meaningful progress in how colleges address antisemitism, with the share of schools earning A and B grades rising significantly in 2026 as universities increasingly adopt ADL-recommended policies. But the threat of antisemitism on college campuses is far from gone; incidents remained almost three times higher in 2025 than in 2021.  ADL also filed several Title VI lawsuits and reached a settlement in a complaint against Pomona College — putting additional pressure on campuses to adopt meaningful reforms in response to the threat of litigation.
    
    
• In 2025, 45 percent of all incidents (2,847 incidents) were related to Israel or Zionism. This is a lower rate than in 2024, when 58 percent of antisemitic incidents were Israel-related. Anti-Israel rallies featuring extreme anti-Israel rhetoric that crossed the line into antisemitism also decreased significantly – 67 percent overall and 83 percent on college campuses.

• There was also a nearly 50-percent drop in white supremacist propaganda distribution.

Methodology

The ADL Audit includes both criminal and non-criminal acts of harassment, vandalism and assault against individuals and groups as reported to ADL by victims, law enforcement, the media and partner organizations and evaluated by ADL’s experts.

The complete dataset for antisemitic incidents for 2016-2025 is available on ADL’s H.E.A.T. Map, an interactive online tool that allows users to geographically chart antisemitic incidents and extremist activity. The full dataset can also be downloaded by anyone who would like to take a closer look at individual incidents.

ADL is careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism. Legitimate political protest, support for Palestinian rights or expressions of opposition to Israeli policies is not included in the Audit. As an example, slightly fewer than half of anti-Israel rallies assessed by ADL contained antisemitic content that qualified to be counted within this Audit. ADL’s approach to Israel-related expressions comports with the IHRA definition of antisemitism. The complete Audit methodology is included in the report on our website.

The Audit offers a snapshot of one of the ways American Jews encounter antisemitism, but a full understanding of antisemitism in the U.S. requires other forms of analysis as well, including public opinion polling, assessments of online antisemitism and examinations of extremist activity, all of which ADL offers in other reports.

ADL is the leading anti-hate organization in the world. Founded in 1913 to protect the Jewish people, ADL works to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all. In the face of rising antisemitism and extremism, we protect, advocate, and educate, through a mix of programs and services using the latest innovations and technology, and seek to create a world without hate. ADL’s Mountain States Region covers Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. More at https://mountainstates.adl.org/