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New FBI hate crime stats show Jews still much more likely than Muslims to be victim of hate crime assault

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most recent hate crime statistics, released Monday, show that crimes committed due to racial biases are the most prevalent and that — despite a great deal of rhetoric to the contrary — for crimes committed due to a religious bias, it is still safer to be Muslim than it is to be Jew.

According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program in 2009 there were 8,336 victims of hate crimes. 48.8 percent of those victims were targeted because of a racial bias, 18.9 percent because of a religious bias, and 17.8 percent because of a bias against a person’s sexual orientation.

There were 4,057 victims of racially motivated hate crimes. Over 70 percent of those victims were targeted because of an anti-black bias. The second highest group targeted because of race were victims of an anti-white bias (16.5 percent).

Of the 1,575 victims of a religious bias, over 70 percent were victims of an anti-Jewish bias. The second highest group, at 8.4 percent, were the victims of an anti-Muslim bias.

Sexual-orientation biases accounted for 1,482 victims. 55.1 percent were victims of an anti-male homosexual bias, 15.3 percent were victims due to an anti-female homosexual bias, and 26.4 were victims of a generic anti-homosexual bias.