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. This marked a 589 per cent rise on the final quarter of 2022. It is as though an already leaky pressure cooker finally blew its top.

The CST’s numbers represent the highest annual totals for assaults on Jews (up 96 per cent); damage and desecration of Jewish properties, including schools, synagogues and cemeteries (up 146 per cent); threats (up 196 per cent); and abusive behaviour (up 149 per cent). The most common forms of assault were Jews having bricks or bottles thrown at them, being punched or kicked, being spat on, being stripped of their religious clothing, and being hit with metal bars, threatened with fake guns or with knives. School-related antisemitism, which includes incidents at Jewish schools and targeting of children on their way to or from school, was up 232 per cent, while cases related to universities or student unions rose 203 per cent.

The perpetrator’s age was only recorded in half of all cases but roughly one in five were under the age of 18. Ethnicity was provided in around one-quarter of incidents and here again we see an October 7 effect. Between January 1 and October 6, 56 per cent of perpetrators were white, but for the remainder of the year, 41 per cent were Arab or North African, 32 per cent white, 16 per cent Asian and 11 per cent black.

For the first time, the CST documented incidents in every police region of the country. In Suffolk, a synagogue was spray-painted with the words ‘SS IDF’. In central London, a Jewish man was accosted by a group of pro-Palestinian protestors while walking home from Shabbat services. They shouted ‘We are going to rape your mother, you dirty Jew’ while kicking at him, yelling the takbir (‘Allahu Akbar’) and calling him a ‘filthy yahud’, the Arabic word for ‘Jew’. In Hertfordshire, the headteacher of a Jewish school received a letter warning that: ‘Jihad is being fought and you are going to have your throat slit by us.’ The correspondence gave a list of reasons why the teacher would be targeted — ‘you eat no halal meat… you aren’t Muslims… you are Jew lover’ — and warned of ‘beheadings and intifada’.

The report is particularly useful for documenting how swiftly news reports of the October 7 atrocities were followed by targeting of British Jews. The first air siren sounded in Israel at 8.30 a.m. UK time and the first incident in the CST report was at 12.55 p.m. One-fifth of cases before October 7 involved a reference to Israel but this jumped to 56 per cent after that date. The report states:

‘The speed at which antisemites mobilised in the UK following Hamas’ attack shows that, initially at least, the significant increase in anti-Jewish hate was, if anything, a celebration of Hamas’ massacre by people whose own hatred was emboldened and, in their minds, legitimised by the brutality enacted on civilians in southern Israel.’

The CST has been producing annual statistics on antisemitism in the UK since 1984. Its methodology is rigorous, relying on a narrower, evidence-based definition of antisemitic incidents than the ‘perceived by the victim or any other person’ standard used by the police. CST figures don’t include the general activities of antisemitic organisations and nor does the organisation trawl social media for abusive comments. It limits itself to reports received from victims or witnesses where evidence of antisemitic motivation can be found. Research shows that only 21 per cent of British Jews report incidents to police or other organisations, so while the CST’s data is gold standard it captures only a portion of the antisemitism faced by Jews in the UK.

There is no glossing over things; the outlook is bleak. The report confirms antisemitism as a grave and growing problem in this country. The targeting of British Jews during Israeli military operations in Gaza, something seen in 2014 and 2009, has been joined by another disturbing phenomenon: attacks on Israeli Jews inspiring antisemitism against British Jews. Especially troubling are incidents involving schools, synagogues, businesses and those in religious garb. These confirm that outward signs of Jewishness act as a target. Inevitably, some Jews will become wary, as some already are, of being visibly Jewish in public. That British citizens are even having to think in these terms is abhorrent but it is the country we now find ourselves with.

The CST notes that none of the incidents documented last year were designated as ‘extreme violence’, which refers to stabbing, shooting, kidnapping, bombing or arson at an inhabited property. I don’t wish to be a Cassandra, nor do I say this lightly, but the risk of extreme violence in the short to medium term has to be considered heightened. Not only because of the trends identified in this report but because this is a country where an MP was murdered partly over his membership of Conservative Friends of Israel while another has just been intimidated into standing down over his pro-Israel views. I hope and pray that I’m wrong but I fear an extreme incident is only a matter of time.

Which leaves us with a question: do we want to be this sort of country? A country where Jews are pelted with bricks and beaten with bars, where Jewish children are targeted on their way to school, where synagogues and even cemeteries are desecrated. I don’t want us to be this sort of country. One of the most admirable qualities of the British is their tolerance of even the most obnoxious ideologies. We need to become much less tolerant – hotly intolerant, in fact – when it comes to antisemitism.