NEW YORK— The Anti-Defamation League says the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States reached a record high last year and notes that 58% of the 9,354 incidents related to Israel, notably chants, speeches and signs at rallies protesting Israeli policies.

In a report released Tuesday, the ADL, which has produced annual tallies for 46 years, said it’s the first time Israel-related incidents — 5,422 of them in 2024 — comprised more than half the total. A key reason is the widespread opposition to Israel’s military response in Gaza after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The ADL’s findings add grist to an intense, divisive debate among American Jews — and others — over the extent to which vehement criticism of Israeli policies and of Zionism should be considered antisemitic.

The debate has broadened as President Donald Trump’s administration makes punitive moves against universities it considers too lax in combating antisemitism and seeks to deport some pro-Palestinian campus activists.

The upshot, for numerous Jewish leaders, is a balancing act.

Decrying flagrant acts of antisemitism as well as what they consider to be the administration’s exploitation of the issue to target individuals and institutions it dislikes.

“The fears of antisemitism are legitimate and real — and we don’t want to see those real fears exploited to undermine democracy,” said Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. “I feel that a majority of American Jews can believe that two things are true at the same time.”

The ADL said in its new report it is “careful to not conflate general criticism of Israel or anti-Israel activism with antisemitism.” But there are gray areas. For example, the ADL contends that vilification of Zionism — the movement to establish and protect a Jewish state in Israel — is a form of antisemitism, yet some Jews are among the critics of Zionism and of the ADL itself.

Incidents at anti-Israel rallies that counted as antisemitism in the new ADL tally include “justification or glorification of antisemitic violence, promotion of classic antisemitic tropes ... and signage equating Judaism or Zionism with Nazism.”