As reports of antisemitic incidents rise in Montgomery County, Maryland, a News4 I-Team investigation shows them at levels far worse than any time since 2016, when police started posting bias crime statistics.
In 2022, the Montgomery County Police Department reported 48 anti-Jewish bias incidents, up 55% compared to 2021 when just 31 were reported. It was far more than any other religious-based bias incident. Nearly half of the 2022 incidents were in the last four months of the year, according to police data.
The News4 review comes after recent examples in the county of antisemitic graffiti at schools and trails, hateful flyers mailed to community members and a recent attack of a man grocery shopping.
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Community members in Montgomery County tell our News4 colleagues this is scary; one told News 4’s Derrick Ward said he feels there’s no way to escape it.
This has gotten way out of control. This is not the kind of community we want to live in... We can’t hide from this.
Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich
Reacting to the increase, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich and county leaders on Monday awarded $800,000 in grants to non-profits and places of worship to increase security and deter hate crimes.
“These are things we have to do. We don’t have a choice at this point," Elrich told reporters at a Monday news conference as he encouraged everyone in Montgomery County to speak out. "This has gotten way out of control. This is not the kind of community we want to live in. We don’t want people to think we will sit back and just absorb it and go about our business. We have to do more to stomp that out... The only way it will stop is when we confront this in our communities live and in person... We can’t hide from this. I can’t build walls high enough and strong enough to keep you from getting assaulted."
In the District, Metropolitan Police Department bias crime reports show far fewer incidents and a smaller increase in religious based bias crimes than in Montgomery County.
“We simply will not tolerate incidents of hate bias intolerance in our community,” MCPD Assistant Chief Mark Imada said Monday. “The Montgomery County Police Department does a great job documenting these events. In fact, we lead the region in reporting and investigating these events.”
The I-Team review also shows how few arrests are made in the reported bias incidents. In the 243 anti-Jewish bias crimes reported since 2016, Montgomery County police report just 10 arrests.
A recent survey from the Anti-Defamation League released just three weeks ago shows levels of antisemitism nationwide, in their words, "at the highest level measured in decades."
According to the ADL, 85% of the 4,000 Americans surveyed believed at least one anti-Jewish trope or harmful stereotype. Twenty percent believed in six or more of them.
The director of the D.C.-area Anti -Defamation League referred to both the incidents and that recent survey and told the I-Team in an email: “While this finding and others are alarming, it allows us to get a sense of the features that drive antisemitic attitudes and begin to better target and intervene in these matters."
