When CST’s antisemitic incidents team were compiling our latest report, I hoped that it would show that things were beginning to improve: but I knew that was very unlikely, because it was obvious how busy everything had been over the last six months.
The figures show a 10 per cent rise. Nobody can be entirely sure how much of that is better reporting rather than more actual antisemitism, but crime studies consistently show that around 75 per cent of incidents do not get reported to us, to Police, security guards or anybody.
So, for CST what really matters is not the precise total number, but the overall trend, and I think this is also what our community, Police and Government should focus upon.
The key thing is that every month more than 100 antisemitic incidents are now being reported to CST. Previously, we only reached these totals when Israel was at war. The figure would suddenly escalate five or six-fold and then fall again, always a bit higher than before, but essentially back down.
