UK antisemitism incidents in 2021 highest ever recorded

The U.K. experienced the highest number of antisemitic crimes in 2021, according to a report by the Community Security Trust (CST) nonprofit.

In 2021 there were 2,255 hate incidents reported, which is the highest number ever recorded since the CST began tracking the numbers of hate incidents in 1984.

The number of anti-Jewish incidents has broken the annual record repeatedly every year for the past six years, CST reports. 

The number of incidents recorded in 2021 overtook that of 2020 by 34 percent, and it is the first time the group has seen over 2,000 antisemitic incidents reported. 

CST notes that another 700-plus incidents were reported, but were not deemed to be anti-Jewish in nature and thus were not counted. Those not counted included anti-Israel activity that was not inherently anti-Jewish.

The anti-Jewish activity did intensify in the month of May as reports came out of major escalations of violence in Israel and Gaza, CST reports. Hate-fueled incidents in May and June of 2021 account for nearly 40 percent of all the antisemitic incidents in 2021.

Over 500 incidents reported were far-right induced, mentioning themes of Nazism, and 90 were instances of so-called Holocaust celebration, according to CST’s report, where people hoped for genocide to happen again or celebrated the fact that it had occurred during World War II. 

However, antisemitic online incidents dropped by 13 percent in 2021, following a trend that was seen by the organization in 2020 as well.