The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Britain rose by more than a third to record levels in 2016, according to data released Wednesday by the Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitic incidents and provides security to Jewish communities.
The group recorded 1,309 incidents of anti-Jewish hate last year, compared with 960 in 2015, a rise of 36%, according to a report in the Guardian. The previous record number of incidents was in 2014, when 1,182 were recorded.
The CST’s chief executive, David Delew, said, “While Jewish life in this country remains overwhelmingly positive, this heightened level of anti-Semitism is deeply worrying and appears to be getting worse. Worst of all is that, for various reasons, some people clearly feel more confident to express their antisemitism publicly than they did in the past.”
The 2014 spike in incidents was attributed to the war in Gaza that summer, which was deemed to be a “trigger event” and which saw a rise in anti-Semitic incidents throughout Europe. However, no such trigger was identified for 2016.
Instead, the CST said, there may have been a “cumulative effect of a series of events and factors that, taken together, have created an atmosphere in which more anti-Semitic incidents are occurring”. READ MORE
