A record number of anti-semitic incidents were recorded in the UK during 2016, according to new data from the Community Services Trust.
The CST, which monitors anti-semitism and provides security advice and training to Jewish organisations, recorded 1,309 anti-semitic incidents last year, 36 per cent higher than the previous year. The previous highest annual total – 1,182 incidents – had been recorded in 2014.
In comments on its website, the organisation said there was no obvious single cause for the record number, noting that while previous record high incident totals had been caused by reactions to “sudden, specific ‘trigger events’ leading to temporary ‘spikes’ in incidents”, there was no single, sudden trigger event in 2016.
It said the high number of incidents was spread uniformly through most of the year with every month between May to December seeing totals above 100 incidents – what the CST described as “an unprecedented run of consistently high totals over an eight month period”. They said that in the decade prior to 2016, monthly totals above 100 incidents had only happened six times.
The CST said they have seen the average monthly number of anti-semitic incidents climb to 105 between July, 2014, and the end of 2016 – more than double the average number of incidents per month than was the case four years ago. They said this increase may have been caused by the cumulative effect of events and factors that “have created an atmosphere in which more antisemitic incidents are occurring, and are also more likely to be reported to CST and the police”.
These factors include the conflict in Gaza and Israel in summer, 2014; terrorist attacks on Jewish communities in France and Denmark in 2015 and other terrorist attacks in Europe and, in 2016 alone, high profile allegations of anti-semitism in the Labour Party, a perceived increase in racism and xenophobia following the EU referendum, and regular, high-profile discussion of anti-semitism, racism and hate crime in mainstream media, politics and on social media during the year.
The most common type of incident recorded during 2016 was verbal abuse directed at visibly Jewish people in public.
