Community Security Trust
2021 has seen the highest annual total of anti-Jewish hate incidents that CST has ever recorded, the newly published Community Security Trust (CST) report has revealed this week.
2,255 antisemitic incidents were reported to the CST in 2021, which is a 34% increase from the 1,684 reported in 2020. This is the first time the CST has ever recorded over 2,000 incidents in a single year and is 24% higher than the previous record of 1,813 incidents in 2019. Since 2016, this is the fifth year where the number of incidents has broken the previous highest record.
39% of the annual total for 2021 occurred during May and June alone. In May, a record of 661 incidents were recorded by the CST, and in June 210 which is the fifth highest monthly total ever recorded. The significant spike in anti-Jewish hate reported during May and June can be attributed to the escalation in violence in Israel and Gaza during this period last year. CST explain that “when there is a trigger event, it consistently affects the levels of anti-Jewish hate directed at the diaspora Jewish community in the UK”.
826 recorded incidents involved Israel or the Middle East alongside anti-Jewish language. 502 included far-right or Nazi-related discourse, including 90 which ‘celebrated’ the Holocaust. 62 incidents directly comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
Tripling from 2020, 182 anti-Jewish hate incidents involved schools, school students or teachers, with 54% of these happening at non-faith schools. Higher education institutions saw a spike in Antisemitism relating to the conflict in Israel and Gaza, with 128 recorded incidents, the highest amount the CST has recorded in a single year.
It is important to note that the 2,255 incidents outlined in the CST report were not all the reports made to the CST in 2021. A further 752 reports of potential incidents were received by the CST but were not deemed to be antisemitic and are not included in this total. Many of these involved suspicious activity or possible hostile reconnaissance at Jewish locations; criminal activity affecting Jewish people and buildings; and anti-Israel activity that did not contain antisemitic language.
Reacting to the CST’s report, Home Secretary Priti Patel MP said that the statistics are a “shocking and a stark reminder that the racism of antisemitism has not been eradicated,” adding that the Jewish community “has been subject to appalling hatred”.
She underlined: “I continue to support the police to ensure they have the resources to tackle these despicable incidents so that perpetrators can then be punished with the full force of the law”.
In a tweet the Co-Chair of the Conservative Party, the Rt. Hon. Oliver Dowden MP, called the report “deeply worrying” and described the rise in Antisemitism as “abhorrent” and “un-British”.
Click here to read the CST’s full report.
