According to a recent Anti-Defamation League audit report, Virginia recorded “significant decreases” in antisemitic incidents in 2025. However, antisemitism in Fairfax County is anything but dead.
“In 2025, ADL recorded 49 antisemitic incidents in Fairfax County. That includes one physical assault, 27 incidents of vandalism, and 21 incidents of harassment, plus one antisemitic gathering and one instance of offensive literature distribution at a private home,” said Tali Cohen, regional director of ADL D.C.
Cohen said that antisemitism is widespread but noted that schools are frequent vandalism targets.
“Vandalism showed up across business establishments, homes, public spaces, and most heavily at non-Jewish K-12 schools — 15 of the 27 vandalism incidents happened there,” she said.
The Jewish community, Cohen reports, still faces harassment.
“Harassment was concentrated at Jewish institutions, with eight incidents targeting synagogues and community spaces directly,” she said.
The most prevalent hate crimes against the Jewish community in the county, according to Cohen, are vandalism and harassment.
“In Fairfax County, antisemitic vandalism was most prevalent in 2025 with 27 incidents, followed by 21 incidents of harassment and one physical assault. That mirrors what we see nationally, where harassment and vandalism together account for the overwhelming majority of incidents,” she said.
Cohen revealed that antisemitism is rampant in the K-12 setting, both in the county and nationally.
“K-12 is a common site of antisemitic incidents, both nationally and in Fairfax County. The county recorded 17 incidents in K-12 schools in 2025. That’s a decrease from the 29 incidents recorded in 2024, which is real progress, but just one less incident than 2023. We’ve come down from the peak, but we have an elevated baseline,” she said.
Rebecca Schgallis, director of the K-12 Program at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, described hate crimes at schools in the county that have been investigated.
“As a large school district, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) continues to struggle to consistently implement guidance on antisemitism, particularly in how it manifests beyond swastikas, resulting in uneven recognition of and responses to incidents across schools, a concern that has contributed to its investigation by the House Education Committee,” she said.
Schgallis emphasized that antisemitism is rooted in an underlying belief system.
“Antisemitism reflects a broader ideological problem rather than a series of isolated incidents,” she said.
“When school districts, for example, emphasize grievance and promote binary thinking over nuance, it can contribute to an environment in which targeting groups perceived as successful or ‘white’ becomes more normalized, and the erasure or distortion of history is accepted to fit a preferred narrative about Jews and Israel,” Schgallis explained.
“Too many school districts have failed to provide the moral clarity needed to foster a school culture in which antisemitism is clearly understood and unequivocally rejected,” Schgallis concluded.
However, despite the prevalence of antisemitism in K-12 schools, Cohen noted that college campuses saw a significant abatement in antisemitism incidents.
“On college campuses, we saw the steepest decline of any location type nationally, with incidents dropping 66% in 2025. A lot of that came from a drop in anti-Israel protest activity, and from universities adopting stronger policies, many driven by our Campus Antisemitism Report Card,” she said.
Cohen emphasized that antisemitism is a real threat that needs to be tackled by elected officials.
“Elected officials need to understand the severity of the threat and be willing to speak out and act. That’s why ADL is empowering volunteers to meet directly with their state legislators, share personal experiences, and brief them on the audit’s findings,” she said.
“The most important thing is showing up,” Cohen said, addressing community members. “We are calling on all people of goodwill to stand with their Jewish friends and neighbors.”
“Speak up when you see antisemitism, whether it’s a swastika in a school or a harassing comment online,” said Cohen. “Report incidents to ADL — our research is built on incidents reported to us by victims, community members, and partners, and underreporting is a real problem.”
Indeed, although antisemitism is widespread, there is so much of it that is unreported, according to Cohen.
“Recent research from our Center for Antisemitism Research suggests as much as 74% of antisemitic experiences go unreported,” she said.
Despite a lessening of antisemitic incidents, the bigger picture is more complex.
“Virginia recorded 159 antisemitic incidents in 2025, down from 266 in 2024 — a 40% decrease. But incidents are still up 225% since 2020. So while last year’s numbers came down from the post-October 7 peak, they remain elevated above where we were just a few years ago,” said Cohen
“ADL is working every day in Virginia to address antisemitism,” she said.
“For example, ADL mobilized to stop the Virginia Department of Education’s proposed change to curriculum standards that would have dramatically limited students’ exposure to Holocaust history and Jewish heritage. ADL partnered with community organizations in response, launching a campaign that generated nearly 700 letters opposing the change. As a result, the vote was postponed,” Cohen explained.
Cohen highlighted that antisemitism is not isolated but exists within a constellation.
“Antisemitism has been mainstreamed and normalized in ways we haven’t seen in this country for generations. Antisemitic extremists have been emboldened. It moves easily from online spaces into real-world harassment, vandalism, and violence,” she said.
Cohen said that antisemitism is reported by a majority of Jewish Americans.
“Over half of Jewish Americans report experiencing antisemitism in the past year. Nearly one in five were either assaulted, threatened with physical attack, or verbally harassed because of their Jewish identity. And 14% of American Jews have developed a plan to flee the country if needed,” she said.
Cohen suggested that Jewish Americans face an existential threat to this day.
“That’s not a community that feels safe, even when the headline numbers move in the right direction,” she said.
However, Cohen said that there is still promise for a better future for Jewish Americans in Virginia.
“It’s promising that the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism, which provides a clear, consistent framework for educational institutions, law enforcement, and state agencies,” she said.
“We also recently welcomed former Virginia Attorney General [Jason] Miyares’s call for K-12 schools to adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism,” she continued. “Additionally, universities that have adopted ADL-recommended policies are seeing measurable improvement.”
Indeed, Cohen noted that campuses are not turning their backs on the reality of antisemitism.
“However, when school administrators don’t enforce their own policies, when elected officials hesitate to call antisemitism by its name, when institutions wait for outside pressure before acting — that’s where the gap is,” Cohen concluded.
