Antisemitic Incidents Report January - June 2013

The first six months of 2013 saw a thirty per cent fall in the number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the United Kingdom, according to CST's Antisemitic Incidents Report January - June 2013, which is published today.

CST recorded 219 antisemitic incidents across the country in the first half of 2013, compared to 311 incidents in the same period in 2012. A further 228 reports were received by CST, but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total.

CST has recorded antisemitic incidents in the UK since 1984. The highest half-yearly incident total in that period came in the first half of 2009, when 628 antisemitic incidents were reported to CST.

The 219 antisemitic incidents included 29 violent antisemitic assaults, the lowest number of antisemitic assaults recorded in the January-June period since the first half of 2001. None of these were classified as ‘Extreme Violence’, which would involve a threat to life or grievous bodily harm (GBH).

There were19 incidents of Damage & Desecration of Jewish property; 151 incidents of Abusive Behaviour, including verbal abuse, antisemitic graffiti and one-off cases of hate mail; 18 direct antisemitic threats; and two cases of mass-mailed antisemitic leaflets or emails.

Thirty-five of the 219 antisemitic incidents recorded involved the use of social media to transmit antisemitic threats or abuse, while there were three cases of Jewish-owned websites being hacked with antisemitic messages.

The number of antisemitic incidents recorded in Greater London fell by 37%, from 150 in the first half of 2012 to 97 in the first half of 2013. Meanwhile the number of incidents recorded in Greater Manchester rose slightly, from 79 in the first six months of 2012 to 81 during the same period in 2013.

Nearly two-thirds of the 219 incidents were reported directly to CST by the victims of, or witnesses to, incidents, or by their family or friends. Sixty-four incidents were reported to CST by the Metropolitan Police Service or Greater Manchester Police under incident exchange programmes in both cities, whereby anonymised incident data is exchanged between CST and the Police.

CST spokesman Mark Gardner said:

Any fall in the number of antisemitic incidents that take place is to be welcomed, but we are always wary of reading too much into short-term trends as we know that much hate crime goes unreported.

We encourage people to continue to report antisemitic incidents to CST and the Police so that we can give them the help they need and support the efforts of law enforcement to catch offenders and reduce incidents.

The full report can be downloaded here (pdf).

Graffiti in a park in Greater London, May 2013