Anti-Semitic Crime At Highest Recorded Level In British History, Study Finds

Big Ben and the British Houses of Parliament in London. Image by Getty Images

By JTA July 16, 2017

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic crime has risen to its highest level in the United Kingdom, according to a new audit released by the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

According to the National Antisemitic Crime Audit released on Sunday, anti-Semitic crime in 2016 rose 44 percent from 2014.

The audit for 2016 registered a total of 1,078 anti-Semitic crimes in 2016. The audit found that 105 of those crimes were violent but that only one violent anti-Semitic crime was prosecuted. In total, only 15 cases were prosecuted, leading to the conviction of 17 criminals. In 2015, 12 anti-Semitic crimes were prosecuted, of which 3 involved violence, leading to 17 convictions.

In its recommendations, the CAA called for specific training and guidance on anti-Semitic hate crime for officers and prosecutors, appointing a senior officer in each force with responsibility for overseeing the response to anti-Semitic hate crime, and requiring the Crown Prosecution Service to record and regularly publish details of cases involving anti-Semitism and their outcomes, as police forces are already required to do.

Anti-Semitic crime has already been a factor in the initial months of 2017, with incidents including the firebombing of kosher restaurants in Manchester, a man stopped by police after chasing Jews in London brandishing a meat cleaver and machete, and police closing down London streets to make way for a major pro-Hezbollah march.

The group only began keeping statistics in 2014, though other outlets, such as the Community Security Trust, have been releasing figures for much longer. In February, the CST reported a record 1,309 incidents in 2016, constituting a 36 percent increase over the 2015 tally.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO