Crime scene (illustration)
Crime scene (illustration)Thinkstock

Hate crimes have spiked in New York City in 2015, according to New York Police Department (NYPD) statistics released Sunday - particularly against Jews. 

Hate crimes overall rose 9%, with 127 reported crimes during the first week of June in 2015 compared to 116 at the same time in 2014, the New York Post reports. 

Of those, anti-Semitic attacks rose 27% during that period, with 56 over 44 last year.

The Post cites a number of specific incidents, including:

  • The horrific 'knockout' game to punch Jews, which is alive and well; a Jewish teen was punched in the face in Midwood, Brooklyn after the assailant declared he was a "Nazi bastard";
  • Four swastika graffiti found;
  • A teenager caught scribbling "Death for Jewish religion" in Arabic on a school poster;
  • Several anti-Semitic graffitis found outside New York's Mir Yeshiva. 

Anti-Semitism in the US is on the rise, with a 21% increase overall in 2014, according to a damning Anti-Defamation League (ADL) report released in March.

A separate poll by the World Zionist Organization (WZO) revealed 127% rise in hate crimes against Jews in the US that same year.