786 anti-Jewish hate incidents were recorded in the United Kingdom in the first half of this year, a decrease, a decrease of 43% from the 1,371 incidents recorded in the first six months of 2021, the Community Security Trust (CST) reported.
According to CST, a charity organization that protects British Jews from antisemitism and related threats, this is the joint-fifth-highest total ever reported to CST between January and June in any year.
CST recorded 875 antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2020, 911 in the first six months of 2019, and 810 from January to June 2018.
A further 272 reports of potential incidents were received by CST in the first six months of 2022 but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total of 786 incidents.
The decrease from last year to this reflects the magnitude of the spike in anti-Jewish hate observed in May and June 2021, when there was an escalation in conflict between Israel and Hamas. External factors also impacted six-monthly figures reported in the three previous years, with the COVID-19 outbreak and allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party affecting the nature and volume of reports in 2020, 2019 and 2018.
The CST said that without a similar trigger event, the 786 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded between January and June 2022 represent a ‘’new normal’’ in levels of UK-based antisemitism. Over 100 incidents were reported in each month: totals that were unprecedented before 2016 but have become typical since.
More than 100 incidents were recorded with 16% of the victims and 20% of offenders being minors, CST said;
Some 25 incidents targeted Jewish schoolchildren outside of school, often on their way to or from home; 12 incidents related to Russia’s war in Ukraine, such as conspiracy theories accusing Jewish people of causing and funding the war; 13 anti-Semitic incidents took place at Jewish schools; and 12 incidents involved Jewish schoolchildren or staff at non-faith schools.