"It'll be an attitude of people won't be helpful to you or won't be nice to you and that kind of worry.
"There are a lot of keyboard warriors online, you will never see it in real life, but there is definitely antisemitism here.”
Jasmine Cohen (Screenshot/ITVNews)[Missing Credit]
Meanwhile, Jasmine Cohen, who has lived on the Channel island for eight years, noted a shift in the atmosphere since the October 7 attacks and the start of the Gaza War.
"We found ourselves a little lost and isolated after the 7 October attacks and it was very hard speaking to other people because suddenly that part of your identity matters a lot more,” she explained.
Levy and Cohen were speaking after Clive Lawton, chief executive of the Commonwealth Jewish Council, visited the island to discuss the issue of antisemitism with the local Jewish community, who number around 60.
While among the British Isles and a member of the Commonwealth, Guernsey, like Jersey and the Isle of Man, is not part of the UK and retains its own parliament and independent legal system.
Cohen added that she hoped Lawton’s visit would “provide some counterbalance” to misinformation online about Jewish people.
And Lawton himself, while conceding that face-to-face antisemitism was “not a big problem in Guernsey”, highlighted that it was “hovering around on the internet”, presenting a particular risk to young people.
During his trip, he met several deputies – members of Guernsey’s parliament, the States of Deliberation – and asked them to “formally adopt a clear definition of antisemitism” in the form of the IHRA definition and its accompanying examples. The definition was adopted formally by the UK in 2016, with the Isle of Man following suit earlier this year.
"If you can't define something, you can't deal with it,” he added.
