UK anti-Semitic incidents rise for 4th straight year, reach all-time high
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(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.”
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