UK anti-Semitic incidents rise for 4th straight year, reach all-time high
Image by Getty Images
(JTA) — The number of anti-Semitic incidents documented in Britain increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2019, reaching a record tally of 1,805 cases.
Overall, the increase over 2018 was of 7%, but the category of assault increased by 27% to 157 incidents, the Community Security Trust, or CST, British Jewry’s largest watchdog on anti-Semitism, wrote in its annual report published Wednesday.
It’s the highest incident tally in the assault category ever reported to CST in a calendar year. Anti-Semitic vandalism rose by 11% to 88 cases.
Among the motives ascertained in 495 cases overall, Labour anti-Semitism accounted for 45% and the far right a quarter of them. Anti-Zionist and Islamist motives accounted for another 25% and 3.8%, respectively.
Incident peaks correlated with periods when discourse around Jews and anti-Semitism “was prominent in news and politics due to the continuing controversy over allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party,” CST wrote.
The perpetrators were described in 560 of the incidents. Of these, 67% were described as light-skinned Caucasians, 17% were said to be dark-skinned Caucasians, 13% were reported as black and 10% were said to be Arab.
“These proportions have fluctuated very little from 2018, and are broadly typical of a period without a significant trigger event from the Middle East,” CST wrote.
Marie van der Zyl, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, in a statement called the rise documented in the report “deeply depressing” and requiring counteraction. But, she added, “Britain remains a happy place for its Jewish community.”
The post Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rise for 4th year straight year to reach all-time high appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
