Anti-Semitic abuse at a record high

ATTACKS against Jewish people have rocketed to record levels, a charity has said.

The hate crimes included verbal abuse, ‘Heil Hitler’ salutes and swastikas daubed on community centres and synagogues.

Some 767 such attacks were recorded in the first half of 2017, said The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antiSemitic abuse.

It is a rise of 30 per cent on the same period last year and the highest figure since the charity began collecting figures 33 years ago. The CST said that there had been an ‘unprecedented’ run of more than 100 incidents each month stretching back to April 2016. The most common type of incident – 568 cases – involved verbal abuse directed at Jewish people ‘going about their daily business in public places’.

The rise is due to events creating an ‘atmosphere that has the potential to motivate offenders’, a CST report said, citing the Labour party disciplinary hearing and suspension of Ken Livingstone for claiming Hitler supported Zionism.

Better reporting of incidents accounted for some of the increase, the CST added.