Antisemitic Incidents Report January-June 2024

CST’s Antisemitic Incidents Report January-June 2024, published today, shows 1,978 instances of anti-Jewish hate recorded across the UK in the first six months of this year. This is the highest January-to-June total ever reported to CST, and higher than every previous annual total bar two: 2023 and 2021, when the record figures were also driven by anti-Jewish reactions to conflict in the Middle East. It is a 105% rise from the 964 antisemitic incidents reported in the first half of 2023, and 44% higher than the previous six-monthly record of 1,371 cases of anti-Jewish hate in 2021.

A further 1,493 potential incidents were reported to CST that are not included among the report’s statistics as, upon further investigation, they did not evidence antisemitic language, motivation or targeting. Many of these potential incidents involve suspicious activity or possible hostile reconnaissance at Jewish locations, and they play an important role in informing CST’s provision of protection to the Jewish community.

The record figure of 1,978 incident reported between January and June 2024 reflects the high levels of antisemitism recorded since the Hamas terror attack in Israel on 7 October 2023. Although not as high as the surge witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the ensuing and ongoing war has continued to hold prominence in media, news and public discourse, impacting the scale and content of anti-Jewish hate observed this year.

Discourse relating to Israel, Palestine and the Hamas terror attack was evident in 1,026 incidents, 52% of the total. There were 836 incidents that showed explicitly anti-Zionist motivation alongside anti-Jewish hate speech or targeting, 208 containing the words “Zionism” or “Zionist”, often as euphemisms for “Jewishness” and “Jew” or alongside other antisemitic sentiments, and 186 wherein direct comparisons were drawn between Israel or Jewish people and the Nazis.

In each month, over 200 instances of antisemitism were reported to CST. Before October 2023, CST had only recorded more than 200 incidents per month on five occasions, all of which occurred when Israel was at war. The incident counts in February (443 incidents), January (388 incidents and March (318 incidents) respectively constitute the fifth-, sixth- and seventh-highest monthly totals for antisemitism in the UK in CST’s records.

Record January-to-June figures were reported to CST in several of antisemitic incident categories. One hundred and twenty-one incidents were taken in the category of Assault, rising by 41% from the from the 86 incidents of this kind recorded in the first half of 2023. They comprise 6% of the six-monthly total, down from 9% from January to June last year. Unlike in 2023, there was one additional case that was serious enough to class as Extreme Violence.

Instances of Damage & Desecration to Jewish property increased by 246%, from 24 in the first half of 2023 to 83 between January and June 2024. There were 142 direct antisemitic Threats reported in the first six months of 2024, an increase of 158% from the 55 incidents of this kind recorded in the first half of last year. Meanwhile, 1,618 incidents were reported in the category of Abusive Behaviour from January to June 2024, up 104% from the 792 instances of Abusive Behaviour recorded over the same period in 2023, forming 82% of the six-monthly total. This figure eclipses the incident total recorded across all categories between January and June of all preceding years and is higher than all but six annual antisemitic incident totals ever reported to CST. CST recorded 13 incidents in the category of mass-produced antisemitic Literature during the first half of 2024, rising by 86% from seven such incidents recorded across the same timeframe in 2023. Literature and Extreme Violence were the only categories in which record totals were not reported from January to June 2024.

CST recorded 630 online incidents, more than in any previous January-to-June period and 32% of the overall figure. It is an upswing of 153% from the first six months of 2023, when 249 online incidents made up 26% of the Half-year total. The surge in online antisemitism is partly a result of the war in Gaza and the subsequent proliferation of dialogue, debate, information and disinformation on social media platforms, which sometimes slip into anti-Jewish hate. Four hundred and forty-one (70%) of the 630 online incidents involved discourse relating to the Middle East, while this was true of just 585 (43%) of the 1,348 ‘offline’ reports of antisemitism.

Instances of antisemitism affecting schools, schoolchildren and staff rose by 119%, from 74 incidents in the first half of last year to a record 162 in the first half of this. This is typical of times when Israel is at war, as is the proportion of school-related incidents that took place in the context of non-faith schools: 50% in the first six months of 2024, compared to 36% from January to June 2023. 

A record number of reports of anti-Jewish also occurred in the higher education sphere. In the first half of 2024, CST recorded 96 antisemitic incidents in which the victims or offenders were students or academics, or which involved student unions, societies or other representative bodies. In is a rise of 465% from the same period in 2023, when 17 instances of university-related antisemitism were reported. Of these 96 incidents, 45 were online, 44 took place on campus or university premises, and 70 (73%) referenced Israel and events in the Middle East. For context, 51% of incidents not linked to universities contained this rhetoric.

CST recorded 1,037 antisemitic incidents in Greater London, an increase of 120% from the 471 incidents reported in London in the first half of 2023. Meanwhile, there were 268 antisemitic incidents recorded in Greater Manchester, an increase of 96% from the 137 such incidents in the same timeframe in 2023. Combined, incidents in these communal hubs form 66% of the January-to-June total, compared to 63% across the first six months of 2023.

Elsewhere, the UK regions with the highest volume of reports were West Yorkshire with 115 incidents, Hertfordshire with 60 incidents, Thames Valley with 47 incidents, West Midlands with 43 incidents, and Scotland with 40 incidents. CST recorded at least one antisemitic incident in all but two police constabularies across the country.

Read the full Antisemitic Incidents Report January-June 2024.