Concern over anti-Semitic incidents

The second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents was recorded last year (AP)
12 April 2012

The second highest number of anti-Semitic incidents was recorded last year, a Jewish security charity said.

More than 639 reports of bigoted violence and abuse were received last year by the Community Security Trust (CST).

They included street attacks, hate mail, threats, and the vandalism and desecration of Jewish property.

The charity, which monitors anti-Semitism in Britain, said the figures marked the second worst year since records began in 1984.

They were a significant fall on 2009, when 926 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, fuelled by the ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces.

But researchers said they continued a long-term trend of rising numbers of physical and verbal attacks against Jews.

Mark Gardner, of the CST, said: "Anti-Semitism is not the most important thing in British Jewish life, but there is clearly a significant problem. The CST, police, politicians and Government will keep working in close partnership to tackle anti-Semitism and its wider causes of bigotry and extremism."

John Mann MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism, said the figures were a "sad and timely reminder". He said: "Our focus is absolute and we will continue to do all we can to ensure these numbers go down over the coming years."

The CST said the Gaza aid flotilla raid in May and prominent Jewish festivals in September led to two spikes in the number of incidents during the year. Most of the incidents took place in London (219), followed closely by Manchester (216) as well as Hertfordshire (40) and Leeds (21).

Among the incidents were 114 assaults, 83 incidents of vandalism, 385 reports of abuse and 32 direct threats.

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