North Carolina and the nation saw a jump in antisemitic incidents in 2024, with the ADL recording the highest number of incidents nationwide since it began tracking them annually in 1979.

North Carolina saw a 16% rise in antisemitic incidents last year and a 47% jump in bomb threats, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) reported Tuesday.

The increase is alarming but not surprising, says Douglas Greene, the Jewish Community Relations Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Charlotte.

“Statistics are great, but the numbers represent real people and real Charlotteans,” Greene said. “Specifically real students that are being harassed, synagogues being targeted with bomb threats or hate mail. Swastikas, graffiti at local high schools. It’s really personal for us.”

Thirty-one of the 175 incidents in North Carolina occurred on college campuses. One such incident involved a University of North Carolina student who had a Jewish slur written on their door days after their mezuzah — a small box placed on the right doorpost of Jewish homes — was stolen.

Twenty-two of those incidents occurred in Charlotte, including four bomb threats and antisemitic stickers posted in public areas.

Fifty-three incidents occurred in the Raleigh-Durham area in 2024. Most were harassment, including a death threat to a Jewish business owner, students at Meredith college calling a Jewish student a “Zionazi” and three bomb threats to synagogues.

The N.C. numbers follow a national trend of an increase of antisemitic incidents following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. Nationally, antisemitic incidents increased by 5 percent between 2023 and 2024, indicating that antisemitism has become a reality for American Jewish communities rather than just a temporary spike, the report said.

In his role at the Jewish Federation, Greene responds to incidents of antisemitism in K-12 schools, college campuses and in the public sector. He said he works with officials on the local, state and federal levels to help stem the increase.

Education and creating safe spaces is key to having meaningful, change-making conversations, he said.

“You need to create spaces where people feel comfortable making a mistake,” he said. “ I don’t think that we can really make a lot of movement when anyone is too afraid to ask a question that could get them canceled. We need to start cultivating spaces in which true, authentic dialogue can take place around what’s going on in Israel.”

The ADL says it does not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism. Support for Palestinian rights and legitimate political protest was not included in the annual report.

Reports of antisemitism will likely continue to rise because people are reporting more often, Greene said. Prior to the Oct. 7 attack, Greene said people either didn’t know how, or just weren’t reporting incidents of antisemitism to the ADL or local organizations. Now, that pattern has changed.

Charlotte, home to 32,500 Jewish residents, is no stranger to antisemitic incidents. Just last fall, swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti were spray painted on the bus at the Morrison Family YMCA where multiple Jewish sports leagues were playing.

Greene said he hopes to bring awareness not only to antisemitism, but to all types of hate that occurs across the state.

“Antisemitism, we always say, is the kind of canary in the coal mine,” he said. “It’s the warning of a larger symptom of society. And so we want to make sure we really cut that off before something larger happens.”

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