The Community Security Trust’s (CST) Antisemitic Incidents Report for 2021 found that anti-Jewish hate crimes hit the highest annual total ever recorded, with a 34% spike in cases.
On Thursday, the antisemitism monitoring group reported 2,255 incidents, marking the first time it has recorded more than 2,000 cases in a single year. The UK has now seen record annual totals of antisemitic incidents in five of the past six years.
Some of the victims affected by anti-Semitism were targeted in online campaigns that saw “dozens of accounts sending hundreds or even thousands of tweets, images or posts” that were classed as abusive.
With Jewish individuals also being subjected to verbal abuse, hate mail or anti-Semitic graffiti, one report saw people driving through Jewish neighborhoods in vehicles draped with Palestinian flags and singling out Jewish pedestrians for harassment.
CST claimed that the record figure was “driven by the significant spike in anti-Jewish hate reported during and following the escalation in violence in Israel and Gaza” in May 2021. Together, incidents in May and June 2021, directly after the outbreak of conflict between the two regions, accounted for 39% of the annual total.
“When there is a trigger event, it consistently affects the levels of anti-Jewish hate directed at the diaspora Jewish community in the UK,” the charity warned. It cited how over a third of all anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 “alluded or were related to Israel and the Middle East” as evidence for this assertion.