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This Week’s Topline

Trends in Antisemitism and Extremism We Expect to Continue in 2026

1. An Unprecedentedly High Threat Environment

Police in Boulder, Colorado after a firebombing assault in 2025. (Image: Chet Strange/Getty Images)

The ADL Center on Extremism has documented 11 terrorist plots or attacks motivated by antisemitism or anti-Zionism and/or targeting Jews, Zionists or Jewish institutions in the United States since July 2024. In this high-threat environment, threats emanate from across the political spectrum.

2. Youth Radicalization in Violent Online Communities

There is an evolving threat landscape in the overlap of online subcultures that blend antisemitic and extremist ideologies with violent content. As part of our work monitoring these toxic spaces, COE identified at least four shooters who were radicalized in these environments — each inspired by and emulating their predecessors.

3. Antisemitism Normalized in Popular Online Content

Another notable, disturbing development in 2025 has been the mainstreaming and normalization of antisemitism in popular social media and podcast spaces, whether it’s the Tucker Carlson Show inviting guests like white supremacist Nick Fuentes and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones or podcaster Hasan Piker declaring that his favorite flag is of the U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization Hezbollah.

4. AI Tools Struggle to Detect Antisemitism

Antisemitism is also showing up in popular AI spaces. Research from the ADL Center for Technology and Society (CTS) continues to expose critical vulnerabilities and the potential for extremist abuse in AI tools. For example, earlier this year, CTS research revealed how LLM models from four leading companies — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta — all showed bias against Jews and Israel.

Read more in our year-end wrap-up about how ADL’s work has led to investigations and arrests, groundbreaking research into extremism, and progress in challenging tech companies to address the ways that their tools create hateful content.

MAKING PROGRESS WITH ADL

ADL Desert Region’s Jolie Brislin is proud to share that through conversations grounded in ADL’s new Jewish Policy Index and its recommendations, we worked with governors’ offices in both Arizona and Nevada — in one state, a Democrat and in the other, a Republican — to advance statewide approaches to addressing antisemitism.

In Arizona, discussions with Governor Katie Hobbs and her administration led to the creation of the Governor’s Advisory Council on Jewish American Affairs. In Nevada, conversations with Governor Joe Lombardo and his administration resulted in the Governor’s Antisemitism Working Group.

ADL is taking part in both of these new groups that will give the Jewish community a direct voice with state leadership and help translate data into action on issues that matter most to our community, including combating antisemitism, strengthening inclusion and supporting Jewish life.

What’s News

Endorsing Antisemitism Guardrails in AI: Reps. Jacobs, Bacon, Ciscomani and Friedman have introduced a bipartisan House Resolution calling for stronger safeguards to address antisemitism in artificial intelligence, an effort ADL spearheaded and endorsed. As ADL’s research has shown, AI tools and platforms have the power to amplify antisemitism, repeat hateful tropes and fuel dangerous false narratives, including those circulating after the horrific antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach. The resolution helps ensure that innovation does not come at the expense of Jewish safety.

👉 SPEAK UP WITH ADL: Urge Congress to require AI companies to implement meaningful safety measures here.

Turning the Page in Your Holiday Calendar: Whether you’re in a school or a workplace, ADL's annual calendar of observances can help make sure that the Jewish community, and all communities, feel heard and included. ADL’s education team is rolling out the 2026 calendar, which includes Jewish observances ranging from secular occasions like International Holocaust Remembrance Day to religious holidays like the High Holidays, as well as those of other major religions and cultures that are represented in the United States. Get ADL’s 2026 calendar now.

A Betrayal of Education Values: Read a powerful op-ed from ADL Philadelphia’s Senior Regional Director, Andrew Goretsky, about the troubling implications of a recent Pennsylvania elementary school incident where, “According to reports, the principal left a voicemail for a Jewish family that included antisemitic comments — remarks about ‘Jew camp,’ ‘Jew money,’ claims that Jews ‘control the banks,’ and assumptions about the parent being a lawyer because ‘the odds probably are good.’... These aren’t abstract concerns. When a principal — someone entrusted with children’s wellbeing — allegedly traffics in age-old stereotypes about Jewish money and power, that’s not just ignorance. It’s a fundamental betrayal of the values that education is supposed to embody.” ADL’s team has been working with the school district in the wake of the incident and will be providing antisemitism training to them in early 2026.

Social Spotlights

@JGreenblattADL

Colorado podcaster and gubernatorial candidate Joe Oltmann recently called for several Jewish state leaders to be executed. He labeled Gov. Jared Polis and others as the “synagogue of Satan Jews.” Calls for political assassinations should never become normalized, especially by someone running for political office. Everyone, no matter what side of the political aisle they sit on, should condemn this dangerous antisemitic rhetoric. News Link.

@ADL

ADL and @JLensnetwork are deeply concerned by the sale of apparel that uses Holocaust mockery and antisemitic dog whistles, including imagery and phrases that trivialize the murder of six million Jews. We hope @Nikestore, @Shopify and @SesameWorkshop urgently review this matter consistent with their stated policies and values. Companies devote extensive resources to building their brands and generating consumer goodwill and they should not be exploited to promote hatred.

@ADLSoutheast

We are aware of multiple incidents of swastikas being painted in parks and neighborhoods across Metro Atlanta. The swastika is a notorious symbol of antisemitic hate, meant to instill fear in the Jewish community. We are in touch with local law enforcement to help ensure this pattern of vandalism is addressed. Thank you to Pastor Brian Webb and other community leaders for speaking out against this hate, especially at a time of increased antisemitism in the US and worldwide.