Federal hate-crime charges in New York, an assault case in Belfast, a disputed Australian judgment, and new vandalism in France show why motive, legal classification, and incident statistics must be kept distinct. None of the broader evidence supports a general decline in antisemitism.

Publication date: August 23, 2026

Abstract: This week’s developments turn on classification. American prosecutors have alleged religious and racial bias in the Central Synagogue attack; Northern Irish police filed ordinary assault charges after an Israeli camera operator was injured; and an Australian judge rejected an antisemitic characterization of anti-Israel vandalism in a specific terrorism proceeding. The cases illustrate why antisemitism reporting requires evidence of conduct, context, and motive—and why lower or narrower recorded totals still do not establish a decline in antisemitism.

PARIS / NEW YORK / SYDNEY — Four days after a man allegedly disrupted Shabbat services at Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, the case moved from a city arrest to federal court. On August 18, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Larry Montes with two federal hate crimes and destruction of religious property resulting in bodily injury.

The federal complaint alleges that Montes struck a congregant, damaged synagogue property, and spat on and headbutted a security guard during the August 14 service. State authorities had already charged him with offenses that included assault as a hate crime. The federal filing adds a second jurisdiction and a specific civil-rights theory. It does not establish guilt. Montes remains a defendant, and the allegations must be proved in court.

That progression—from reported event, to arrest, to state and federal charges—captures the central problem in this week’s global record. “Antisemitic incident,” “hate crime,” “terrorism risk,” and “hostility to Israel” are not interchangeable labels. Each requires its own evidence. Used carefully, the distinctions sharpen the picture. Used carelessly, they can minimize genuine antisemitism or assign an antisemitic motive that the available evidence does not prove.

New York: one attack, several evidentiary stages

The Central Synagogue case is unusually well documented for an incident still at the charging stage. The event occurred during a livestreamed service. A New York Police Department sergeant working an off-duty paid security assignment was already present and made the arrest. Prosecutors allege both anti-Jewish and anti-Black bias in assaults on two people, as well as damage to a house of worship.

The case also arrived against a measurable rise in New York’s confirmed anti-Jewish hate crimes. The NYPD reported 205 such crimes from January through July 2026, compared with 189 over the same period in 2025, an increase of 8.5 percent. Anti-Jewish cases represented 56.9 percent of all confirmed hate crimes in the city during those seven months. In July alone, the department confirmed 23 anti-Jewish hate crimes, compared with 15 in July 2025.

These figures require two qualifications. First, the NYPD numbers are preliminary and subject to revision. Second, the department distinguishes incidents initially reported as possible hate crimes from cases later confirmed by its Hate Crime Task Force after legal review. For July, 50 possible hate crimes were reported across all bias categories; 33 were confirmed. Twenty-nine reports were classified as anti-Jewish, while 23 were confirmed as such.

That distinction is useful, but a change in presentation can create a false trend when confirmed cases are compared with older figures that counted reports at an earlier investigative stage. In early 2026, criticism followed the city’s temporary emphasis on confirmed rather than reported cases. The NYPD now publishes both. The public material reviewed for this report does not establish that the change was designed to suppress the number. It does establish that comparisons become misleading if the category shift is omitted.

The statistical error is concept substitution: “fewer cases in the selected recorded category” becomes “less antisemitism.” The first statement may be exact. The second requires independent evidence about prevalence, severity, reporting behavior, and lived experience.

Belfast: an assault charge without a settled hate classification

A separate case in Belfast demonstrates the other side of the problem. An Israeli i24NEWS crew said it was attacked while filming a documentary about antisemitism. Video published by the broadcaster shows a confrontation; the crew said a man who learned they were Israeli shouted against Israel, tried to interfere with their equipment, and threw a glass that cut camera operator Nadav Abas on the head.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland arrested and charged a 30-year-old man with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, common assault, assault on police, and two counts of possessing an offensive weapon in public. The charges are subject to review by the Public Prosecution Service. Available police reporting did not identify a hate-crime charge or a concluded antisemitic motive.

The careful formulation is therefore narrow: an Israeli journalist was injured in an alleged assault after his crew’s nationality became known, and the reported words concerned Israel. Those facts make motive a legitimate subject of investigation, but they do not permit this report to convert an ordinary assault charge into a formally established antisemitic hate crime. The distinction does not diminish the injury; it identifies what has and has not been proved.

The wider British evidence remains stark. The Community Security Trust recorded 1,926 antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2026, 21 percent more than in the corresponding period of 2025 and the second-highest January-to-June total in its series. It recorded 135 assaults, an 82 percent increase. Britain therefore offers no evidentiary basis for describing antisemitism as declining.

Australia: a judgment about motive, not a national finding

On August 17, the Supreme Court of New South Wales published reasons in State of New South Wales v Farhat, dismissing the state’s application for a one-year extended supervision order under terrorism legislation. Mohommed Farhat had pleaded guilty to 15 offenses arising from a November 2024 vandalism spree in Woollahra, a Sydney district with a substantial Jewish population. Vehicles and buildings were spray-painted with anti-Israel and other slogans, and one vehicle was set on fire.

Justice Desmond Fagan found that Farhat had been recruited for money and drugs, did not hold the ideology expressed in the stipulated slogans, and did not intend to communicate hatred of Jews. The court concluded that the state had not shown, to the required high degree of probability, that he posed an unacceptable risk of committing a serious terrorism offense. It dismissed the proposed supervision order and ordered the state to pay his costs.

The judgment went further, holding that the particular anti-Israel curse painted in the case was political hostility to a foreign state, not antisemitism under what the judge considered the ordinary Australian meaning. Fagan criticized the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition as unhelpful to the proceeding. The New South Wales government said it was seeking urgent advice on a possible appeal.

The decision has drawn sharply opposed reactions, but its legal effect is specific. It concerns Farhat’s intent, the evidence against him, and the statutory test for a future terrorism-risk order. It does not establish that property damage in a Jewish neighborhood can never be antisemitic. Nor does it establish that anti-Israel language is always protected from antisemitic classification. Context may show collective blame, anti-Jewish stereotypes, threats against Jews, praise for killing Jews, or deliberate selection of a Jewish target. None of those elements should be presumed; none should be ignored when evidence supports them.

Criticism of Israel and antisemitic targeting

The Australian case makes a broader boundary visible. Criticism of the Israeli government, opposition to Israeli military operations, advocacy for Palestinian rights, or rejection of Zionism is not automatically antisemitic. A political position becomes relevant to antisemitism reporting when it is used to target Jews as Jews or to hold Jewish people and institutions collectively responsible for a state’s conduct.

Established monitoring practice shows that the distinction is workable. In 2025, Britain’s CST rejected 3,001 potential reports because they did not meet its definition of an antisemitic incident. Many contained anti-Israel material without antisemitic language, motivation, or targeting. Conversely, France’s Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive identified Israel- or Palestine-related language in 388 qualified antisemitic acts for which sufficient detail about the words used was available. The acts entered the dataset because their antisemitic character had been established through the SPCJ’s methodology—not merely because Israel was mentioned.

The evidentiary question is what the words did in context. A denunciation of an Israeli cabinet decision addresses a government. Threatening a French Jewish student over that decision assigns collective responsibility. Protesting outside an embassy addresses a state. Vandalizing a synagogue with a demand directed at Israel makes a Jewish religious institution answer for that state. The same vocabulary can therefore appear in protected political speech or in antisemitic conduct; target, context, content, and intent determine the classification.

France: fresh vandalism against a historically high baseline

In France, police found racist, antisemitic, and sexist graffiti, paint damage, and damaged equipment at the Paul-Bert elementary school in Le Havre after the night of August 19–20. The Seine-Maritime prefecture reported the damage on August 21. No suspect or arrest had been announced in the information available by August 23, so responsibility and individual motive remain undetermined.

The incident falls within a national series that remains historically elevated. France recorded 1,320 qualified antisemitic acts in 2025, compared with 1,570 in 2024. Describing that 16 percent difference as a decline in antisemitism would be unsupported. The 2024 comparison point was itself an exceptional peak; 2025 remained on the high plateau reached after October 7, 2023. Physical violence increased from 106 to 126 acts, and incidents directed at people accounted for 67.4 percent of the total.

The French Interior Ministry explicitly says its count indicates a general trend and is not an institutional statistical series. The SPCJ adds that only cases supported by complaints, police records, prosecutor referrals, or official findings enter the count. Underreporting and unqualified reports remain outside it. An accurate annual total is therefore evidence about recorded acts, not a complete measurement of antisemitism in French society.

The gap between total volume and severity is precisely where a headline can mislead. Selecting the 2024 peak as the sole baseline produces a downward percentage. Restoring the pre-October 7 baseline, the record physical-violence count, the geographic spread, and the reporting limits removes the unsupported implication of broad improvement.

Germany and the European Union: cases cannot replace comparable data

Germany supplied another legal development on August 18. Lawyers for Jewish student Lahav Shapira filed grounds of appeal after the Berlin Administrative Court dismissed his case against the Free University of Berlin as inadmissible in March. Shapira alleges that the university failed to protect him and other students from antisemitic discrimination. The lower court held that the university’s statutory anti-discrimination duty did not create an individually enforceable right. The appeal remains pending; the allegations have not been finally adjudicated.

Germany’s RIAS network separately documented 8,725 antisemitic incidents in 2025, more than three times the 2022 total. The count included 178 assaults, 257 threats, and four cases of extreme violence. RIAS classified 68 percent as Israel-related antisemitism and also documented 807 right-wing extremist incidents. The categories demonstrate that present-day antisemitism draws from multiple ideological environments.

Across the European Union, national rankings are unreliable because recording systems differ. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights reported in January 2026 that member states use inconsistent definitions, bias indicators, reporting channels, and administrative practices; some record little or no official data. Its earlier survey of nearly 8,000 Jews in 13 countries found that 96 percent had encountered at least one form of antisemitism in the preceding year and 76 percent concealed Jewish identity at least occasionally. Fieldwork ended before October 7, 2023, which makes the findings a pre-surge baseline rather than a current prevalence estimate.

Canada and New Zealand: scope determines the total

Canada continues to illustrate why unlike datasets cannot be merged. Statistics Canada recorded 920 police-reported hate crimes targeting Jews in 2024, 39 fewer than in 2023 but 75 percent above the 2022 level. B’nai Brith Canada’s broader audit recorded 6,800 antisemitic incidents in 2025, 9.3 percent more than in 2024; 92 percent were online.

The figures are not rival estimates of the same universe. The first consists of incidents reported to police and classified as confirmed or suspected hate crimes. The second includes a far wider range of reports, particularly digital content. The numerical gap is methodological. Neither the 39-case movement in the police series nor the higher community-monitoring total alone measures a national change in antisemitic attitudes.

New Zealand’s Community Security Group recorded 143 antisemitic incidents in 2025, compared with 131 in 2024, 134 in 2023, and eight in 2022. The 2025 total included five assaults and 15 cases of damage or desecration. Small annual totals make percentage changes volatile, but the level since October 7 remains far above the earlier baseline.

Australia’s inquiry and the wider threat record

Australia’s Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion opened its ninth and final hearing block in Sydney on August 17. The hearings are gathering evidence rather than issuing final findings. They are scheduled to continue through August 28, with the commission’s final report due December 14.

The inquiry follows the December 14, 2025, attack on a Hanukkah gathering at Bondi Beach, where 15 people were killed. On August 22, Reuters reported that the Australian Capital Territory would join the national firearms buyback developed after the attack. One alleged perpetrator remains awaiting trial; reporting that the attack was inspired by Islamic State reflects the authorities’ case, not a completed criminal judgment.

The broader J7 monitoring network recorded 23,174 antisemitic incidents during 2025 across Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. That was 136 percent above 2022. Twenty people were killed in antisemitic attacks across the seven countries. These national datasets are not perfectly harmonized, but the network’s long comparison and the separate violence count reinforce a conclusion also visible in individual-country evidence: selected falls from 2024 peaks do not establish a general retreat.

What can be concluded—and what remains open

This week’s cases show why classification matters. U.S. prosecutors have formally alleged religious and racial bias at Central Synagogue. Northern Irish authorities have charged assault offenses while motive remains unresolved in public reporting. An Australian court rejected an antisemitic interpretation in one case after examining intent and evidence. French authorities classified newly discovered graffiti as antisemitic, racist, and sexist, but had not identified an offender.

None of these procedural outcomes can serve as a direct measure of antisemitism in society. Nor can a fall in one annual incident total. Police records, community-monitoring databases, surveys, security burdens, and court findings answer different questions. Read together, the available indicators do not demonstrate a broad decline: recorded levels remain far above pre-October 7 baselines, and violence or assault has risen in several major jurisdictions.

Data still pending include Britain’s final review of antisemitism in schools, the remaining Australian Royal Commission evidence and its December report, full-year 2026 police and community-monitoring totals, and future EU work on comparable recording. Until those sources are available, the established trend is continuing elevation, not verified improvement; the open questions concern scale, distribution, motive, and the legal classification of individual cases.

Notes and references

1. U.S. Department of Justice, “New York City Man Charged with Federal Hate Crimes for Attack at Manhattan Synagogue,” August 18, 2026.
2. NYPD, July 2026 crime and hate-crime statistics.
3. Press Association via Belfast Telegraph, police charges following the alleged assault on an Israeli television crew, August 17, 2026.
4. Community Security Trust, Antisemitic Incidents, January–June 2026.
5. State of New South Wales v Farhat (final) [2026] NSWSC 985, August 17, 2026.
6. The Guardian, New South Wales seeking advice on a possible appeal, August 22, 2026.
7. Community Security Trust, Antisemitic Incidents Report 2025.
8. Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive, “Les chiffres de l’antisémitisme en France en 2025”.
9. TF1 Info with AFP, damage and hateful graffiti at Paul-Bert school in Le Havre, August 21, 2026.
10. French Ministry of the Interior, “Actes antireligieux — Tendances 2025,” February 12, 2026.
11. RIAS Berlin and partner organizations, statement on Lahav Shapira’s appeal, August 18, 2026.
12. Federal Association RIAS, Antisemitic Incidents in Germany 2025.
13. EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, Monitoring and Recording Antisemitism in the EU, January 27, 2026.
14. EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism: Third Survey.
15. Statistics Canada, police-reported hate crimes motivated by religion, 2020–2024.
16. B’nai Brith Canada’s 2025 audit, figures reported by The Times of Israel.
17. New Zealand Community Security Group, antisemitic incident data.
18. Australian Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, public-hearing schedule.
19. Reuters, Australian Capital Territory joins national firearms buyback, August 22, 2026.
20. J7 Task Force, global antisemitism data for 2025

FAQ

1. Is global antisemitism declining in 2026?
No broad decline has been established. Some recorded totals are below exceptional 2024 peaks, but long-term levels remain high and assault or severe-violence indicators increased in several jurisdictions.

2. What federal charges followed the Central Synagogue attack?
On August 18, 2026, federal prosecutors charged Larry Montes with two hate crimes and destruction of religious property resulting in bodily injury. The charges are allegations and have not produced a conviction.

3. Was the Belfast assault formally charged as an antisemitic hate crime?
Public police reporting listed assault and offensive-weapon charges. It did not announce a hate-crime charge or a concluded antisemitic motive, although the alleged circumstances make motive relevant to the investigation.

4. What did the Australian court decide in the Farhat case?
The court found that Mohommed Farhat was a paid recruit who did not intend hatred of Jews and did not pose the required future terrorism risk. It dismissed the requested extended supervision order. The state is considering an appeal.

5. Is criticism of Israel automatically antisemitic?
No. Classification depends on target, content, context, and sometimes proven intent. Political criticism becomes antisemitically relevant when it targets Jews collectively, uses anti-Jewish stereotypes, threatens Jews, or treats Jewish institutions as proxies for Israel.

6. Why can falling recorded totals be misleading?
The comparison may use an exceptional peak, omit pre-October 7 levels, flatten differences in severity, or switch between reported and confirmed cases. A lower count in one category does not itself measure antisemitism in society.

Key facts

• U.S. federal prosecutors filed hate-crime charges on August 18 after the alleged Central Synagogue attack.
• The NYPD confirmed 205 anti-Jewish hate crimes through July 2026, 8.5 percent more than in the same 2025 period.
• Northern Irish police filed assault-related charges after an Israeli camera operator was injured in Belfast; public reporting did not list a hate-crime charge.
• The NSW Supreme Court dismissed a terrorism supervision application in State v Farhat on August 17.
• Antisemitic graffiti was among the damage discovered at a Le Havre elementary school after the night of August 19–20.
• France’s 2025 total was below 2024, but physical violence increased from 106 to 126 recorded acts.
• CST recorded 1,926 UK incidents and 135 assaults in the first half of 2026.
• Germany’s RIAS network documented 8,725 incidents in 2025, more than three times the 2022 total.

Important named entities, countries, institutions, and dates

Named entities and institutions: Central Synagogue; Larry Montes; U.S. Department of Justice; Southern District of New York; New York Police Department; Police Service of Northern Ireland; i24NEWS; Nadav Abas; Mohommed Farhat; Justice Desmond Fagan; Supreme Court of New South Wales; International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance; Community Security Trust; Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive; Paul-Bert elementary school; Seine-Maritime prefecture; Lahav Shapira; Free University of Berlin; RIAS; EU Agency for Fundamental Rights; Statistics Canada; Australian Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion; J7 Task Force.

Countries and jurisdictions: United States; United Kingdom; Northern Ireland; France; Germany; European Union; Canada; Australia; New South Wales; New Zealand.

Key dates: October 7, 2023; December 14, 2025; August 14, 2026; August 17, 2026; August 18, 2026; August 19–20, 2026; August 21, 2026; August 22, 2026; August 23, 2026; August 28, 2026; December 14, 2026.

Internal-link suggestions

• Previous weekly antisemitism report or antisemitism topic archive
• Explainer comparing reported incidents, confirmed hate crimes, and convictions
• Background page on the IHRA working definition and alternative definitions
• Coverage of antisemitism in French schools and universities
• Prior analysis of Title VI and campus antisemitism in the United States
• Topic page on the EU Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life
• Background coverage of the Bondi Beach attack and Australia’s Royal Commission
• Explainer on anti-Zionism, criticism of Israeli policy, and antisemitic collective targeting