Antisemitic incidents – 13 October update

This is an update to the blog post of 11/10/23

In the six days inclusive between the Hamas terror attack on Israel (Saturday 7 October) and the end of the day yesterday (Thursday 12 October), CST recorded at least 190antisemitic incidents across the UK. This is a provisional total that is almost certain to increase further as we receive more delayed reports of incidents covering this period, and while we continue to verify and log all the reports that we have currently received.

For comparison, CST recorded 32 antisemitic incidents over the same six days in 2022. This means that we have seen an increase of 494% this year compared to the same period last year.

These are all instances of anti-Jewish racism, wherein offenders are targeting Jewish people, communities and institutions for their Jewishness. In many cases, these hateful comments, threats to life and physical attacks are laced with the rhetoric and iconography of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel politics.

Even compared to periods of previous conflicts involving Israel, these statistics are unprecedentedly high. The last time a significant spike in antisemitism related to events in the Middle East was recorded occurred in May 2021. During the first six days of that escalation in violence, 131 antisemitic incidents were reported to CST. Across the first six days of the conflict in July 2014, we recorded 48. Bear in mind, when comparing these to the 190 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded since Saturday, that the figures for 2021 and 2014 are final totals including all late-reported incidents, whereas the current total of 190 incidents is only provisional and will almost certainly increase further.

In addition to the 190 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded so far, CST also logged 124 incidents that have not been classified as antisemitic. These include criminal acts affecting Jewish people and property, suspicious behaviour near to Jewish locations, and anti-Israel activity that is not directed at the Jewish community or does not use antisemitic language.

The 190 antisemitic incidents recorded over this four-day period fall into the following categories:

• 14 Assaults
• 6 Damage & Desecration to Jewish property
• 22 direct Threats
• 148 Abusive Behaviour, including verbal abuse, graffiti on non-Jewish property, hate mail and online abuse

CST has recorded 109 antisemitic incidents in Greater London; 22 in Greater Manchester; eight in West Yorkshire; seven in the West Midlands; four in Hertfordshire; and the remaining 40 incidents were spread across 12 different locations around the UK.

One hundred and forty-six of the 190 antisemitic incidents occurred offline and 44 were online. Many of the online incidents were ‘pile-ons’ involving multiple antisemitic posts and comments all in the same thread or conversation; CST records these as a single incident.

Examples of antisemitic incidents recorded by CST since Saturday include:

• A schoolboy at a Jewish school in London was confronted on their way home about Israel and being Jewish. The offender shouted “you little sh*t Jew” at the victim

• The reporter was in his car in north London when another driver, upon seeing his kippah (skullcap), rammed into him.

• A visibly Jewish man was walking in north London when three men approached him and said, “Get off the streets you f**king Jew, we hope all Jews die, we support Hamas”

• School children on a London bus were being rowdy and one child was sitting the wrong way with his feet towards a Jewish girl’s head. Victim turned to look and when she got off of the bus she was called a Jewish cow.

• A Jewish organisation in London received a series of abusive calls. “Free Palestine”/”F**k you Jews”/ “Zionist dogs” were shouted down the phone from an anonymous number.

• Abuse was sent over Instagram to a girl, saying, “I wish you were at that festival” [a reference to the music festival in Israel where 260 people were killed]

• A visibly Jewish man in Glasgow was hit on the head with steak knife and had his kippah (skullcap) cut in half.

• A man drove past a group of visibly Jewish students in Leeds shouting, “Free Palestine”

• In Nottingham, “Free Palestine” and “f**k the Jews” were written on supermarket wall

• A Jewish organisation was conducting an online event on Zoom, when it was hijacked by offenders with the handle “Free Palestine” playing music over the Zoom call

• Eggs were thrown at a kosher restaurant in Manchester

CST will not stand for this anti-Jewish hatred and nor should anybody else. We urge everyone who experiences or witnesses antisemitism to report it to police and to CST so that those who are trying to intimidate and threaten our community can be investigated, arrested and prosecuted.

To report an antisemitic incident to CST, please use our online form or for urgent or out-of-hours reports please call our 24/7 National Emergency Number 0800 032 3263.