Hate crimes against Jews in England and Wales more than doubled in a year, figures released by the Home Office have shown.

Police recorded 1,326 offences classed as religious hate crimes in which Jewish people were the victims during 2018/19 – compared to 672 in the previous year.

Jews were the targetted in 18 per cent of the total number of hate crimes – while 47 per cent, or 3,530 offences were committed against Muslim people.

The figures are alarming for both communities – with more than three million Muslims and nearly 300,000 Jews in Britain.

Reacting to the figures, a spokesperson for the Community Security Trust said: “The doubling in antisemitic hate crime over the past year is further shocking evidence that antisemitism is an urgent problem in this country that needs to be tackled.

“It is vital that these hate crime reports lead to prosecutions and CST will continue working with Police and the CPS to try to ensure this is the case.”

There were a record 103,379 offences in 2018-19 and the Home Office said the increase was largely driven by better recording by police but charities said the figures were "the tip of the iceberg".

Hate crimes are offences motivated by hostility towards someone's race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender identity.

Race hate crimes accounted for around three-quarters of offences (78,991) and rose by 11 per cent on the previous year.

Transgender hate crime went up 37% to 2,333. For sexual orientation the rise was 25% to 14,491, for disability 14 per cent to 8,256 and for religion three per cent to 8,566.

The figures showed racially or religiously aggravated offences were more likely to be dealt with by a charge or summons than their non-aggravated counterparts, which the Home Office said reflected "the serious nature" of these offences.

Citizens UK, which published a separate survey on hate crime, said levels of hate crime across the UK could be “far higher” than official figures suggest. 

Rabbi Robyn Ashworth Steen, of Jackson’s Row Synagogue in Manchester, said: “Too many people feel that there’s no support and that’s why I’m involved in this work and supporting calls for better laws.”