Britain’s Jews aren’t safe

The explosion of hatred and extremism prompted by the October 7 massacre was never going to limit itself to the Jewish state. Even as early reports were filtering in, the news that Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel and slaughtered its citizens appeared to kickstart a dynamo of Jew-hatred in the West. Since then, we have had only news reports and anecdotes to go on, but the trends were evident. Now we have the numbers.

A report from the Community Security Trust (CST) finds there were more antisemitic incidents in the UK over the past 12 months than in any previous year, with October 7 pinpointed as the most significant factor. The CST recorded 4,103 cases of attacks, threats and abuse directed at British Jews, a 147 per cent increase on the previous year. The spike, the charity says, is ‘due to the sheer volume of antisemitism perpetrated across the UK following Hamas’ attack on Israel’, with two-thirds of incidents recorded on or after October 7.