A BDS Israel protest in London. Photo: wiki commons.

Anti-Semitism in the UK is growing says Community Security Trust (CST), a charity tasked with protecting the British Jewish community. According to a report released by the organization, 640 antisemitic incidents were recorded by CST in 2012, a 5 per cent increase from the 608 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2011 and the third-highest annual total since records started being kept in 1984.

The most dramatic increase took place in the Greater London area where there was a 55 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents, from 203 in 2011 to 314 in 2012. CST says this is mostly explained by improved reporting via the introduction of the CST/MPS incident exchange program. The greatest platform for growth in anti-Semitism was social media.

CST recorded 80 antisemitic incidents that involved the use of internet-based social media in 2012, compared to just 12 in 2011. In keeping with the verbal and written theme, the most common single type of incident in 2012 involved verbal abuse randomly directed at visibly Jewish people in public. In 291 incidents, the victims were ordinary Jewish people, male or female, attacked or abused while going about their daily business in public places, compared to 300 such incidents in 2011. Fortunately violent antisemitic assaults were down, with only 11 percent of the total 640 antisemitic incidents recorded in 2012 being categorized as such, compared to 16 percent of the overall total in 2011.