Last week the Community Security Trust (CST) released an interim report (PDF) on anti-semitic incidents since the start of this year. Between 1998 and 2008 there had already been a big rise in the number of incidents, their last annual report (PDF) contained this graph:
The new report reveals that this year, in just six months, there have already been 609 incidents, beating the previous annual record with only half the year gone. Clearly the rise is connected to the conflict in Gaza but it builds on a long term trend of rising incidents and it cannot be acceptable that the security of Jews in Britain depends on an elusive peace in the Middle East.
Working at the TaxPayers' Alliance, we go along and speak at quite a few different venues, to different audiences. Not so long ago, I spoke at a Jewish school. The children were bright, attentive and, when they disagreed with what I was saying, a challenge. Unfortunately, there was also the sad sight of a number of security guards lining the entrance to the school. While it was obviously good news that they were there, it was incredibly disappointing that they had to be and really brought the reality of anti-semitism home. It felt like such an awful failure that, in our country, a school should need that kind of security to defend the children in its charge against racist attacks.
No one wants some sense of victimhood to define the Jewish community, the CST put it well on their blog when they say that "Antisemitism does not define the British Jewish experience and Britain is a good place to be Jewish. Our community is, generally speaking, well integrated, highly educated and relatively prosperous." Action is urgently needed though, to fight the scourge of anti-semitism.
