The Community Security Trust (CST) released its report into anti-Semitic incidents in the first six months of 2013 Thursday, as it found the total number fell by 30% on the previous year, from 311 to 219.
A further 228 incidents reported to the group as potentially anti-Jewish in motivation where found not to be anti-Semitic in their nature. The numbers represented a ten-year low in anti-Semitic activity.
The findings mark a two-fold increase on the decline reported by the US-based Anti-Defamation League, whose annual audit released Monday showed a 14% drop in incidents in 2012 compared with the previous year.
CST spokesman Mark Gardner said despite the positive findings, “we are always wary of reading too much into short-term trends as we know that a lot of hate crime goes unreported”.
“We encourage people to continue to report anti-Semitic incidents to CST and the Police so that we can give them the help they need and support the efforts of law enforcement to catch offenders and reduce incidents,” he added.
The CST revealed there were no significant factors which prompted the sharp decline in anti-Semitic activity, although conceded that the first half of 2012 had yielded an uncharacteristic spike in incidents following March’s Jewish school shooting by Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah, whilst this year had seen to comparative stimulus. The highest individual month occurred in May of this year, when 46 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded, including eight separate twitter attacks on a Jewish footballer.
Figures consistently fell across the genres of incidents, with 29 violent anti-Semitic assaults recorded in the first half of 2013, compared to 36 the previous year, representing a drop of 19%, the lowest number recorded since 2001’s figure of 22. There were no incidents of extreme violence, in contrast to two recorded in the same period of 2012.
Nineteen cases of damage and desecration of Jewish property were recorded by the CST, a fall of 34% on last year’s 29 reported incidents. Property damage has consistently fallen in the last few years, as 35 incidents were recorded in 2011 and 47 in the first half of 2010 alone.
There was a moderate drop of 2 in the category of direct anti-Semitic threats recorded in 2013, with a total of 18. The largest single category of activity came from the wide-ranging “Abusive Behaviour” category, of which there were 151 in the first six months of this year, representing a 32% decline on the total for the same period of last year of 222. Acts characterised under abusive behaviour include anti-Semitic graffiti on non-Jewish property, incidental hate mail and anti-Semitic viral abuse.
Seventy-six instances of anti-Semitic activity targeting Jewish individuals were recorded, with 35 of those being characterised as identifiably Jewish. A further 105 instances of random verbal abuse of identifiably Jewish targets were also recorded by the CST. 15 of the recorded incidents targeting synagogues, 5 were launched against Jewish schools and 16 targeted Jewish organisations, events or businesses.
Of the total number of anti-Semitic incidents characterised as such by the CST in the first half of this year, 39% of cases, or 85 incidents, showed evidence of some kind of political motivation. In 61 cases, far-right rhetoric was employed, 20 made reference to Israel, Zionism or the Middle East, and four referenced Islam.
CST seeks to protect the British Jewish community from the external threats of bigotry, antisemitism and terrorism.
It provides physical security, training and advice for the protection of the community. It also assists victims of anti-Semitism and monitors antisemitic activities and incidents.