The editor of the Jewish Chronicle and I recently spoke on the LBC radio station about the horrendous carnage in Paris. He noted that all the French Jews he knew were thinking of leaving France, and I added that I had learnt the same about Belgium.
I never imagined that antisemitism on this level would ever again raise its head in Europe in my lifetime.
I now realise that a hotel I stayed in before Christmas in Paris backed on to Charlie Hebdo's offices. There is a plaque on the wall of a nearby school commemorating its Jewish pupils who had been deported to death camps during the Second World War. It urged us not to forget.
Over the past 10 years, Lord Avebury and I, at the National Secular Society, have been pressing for the religion of the perpetrators of crime to be logged as well that of the victims of these crimes, when religion is a factor.
Successive governments have refused to do this. Do they not want this information?
The issue is so grave that we must collect all the evidence
In 2010, the Minister of State for Security and Counter-terrorism, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, refused our suggestion on the grounds of it being "an additional data burden" on the police.
She added that "an initial suspect or alleged perpetrator may not actually be arrested and … any conclusion as to their religious beliefs will be based on some degree of supposition or guesswork".
Lord Avebury believes that the omission is a "political betrayal of the victims".
Late last year, I approached an MP hoping he would table a parliamentary question on this. Sadly, but unsurprisingly, he responded that no such change would be possible in an election year.
Ticking one more box on the statistics already produced doesn't seem much to ask, particularly when the issue is so grave, and surely the first step to prevention is collecting evidence?
I invite all JC readers to urge the Ministry of Justice and parliamentarians to ensure that the perceived religion or belief of perpetrators of crimes be recorded when religion is a factor, and to publish the statistics.
My interest in this matter as the executive director of The National Secular Society is in challenging religious privilege and working towards a society where no one is either privileged or disadvantaged by virtue of their religion or belief. Lord Avebury is one of our honorary associates.
I am not Jewish, but maybe my determination to fight against antisemitism was developed by being in a secondary school where more than 40 per cent of the pupils were Jewish – and I was in the same class at Christ's College in Finchley as Jonathan Sacks.
I'm proud that, in my years there, I was not aware of any incidents of antisemitism.
This, I believe, is a testament to integrated schooling - just one of the many steps that we can take to try to counter the growing divide between Muslims and Jews.
The writer is Executive Director of the National Secular Society
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