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ANTISEMITIC INCIDENTS REPORT 2007

ABOVE: Antisemitic graffiti in Hertfordshire, October 2007

FRONT COVER: Smashed gravestone, Jewish Cemetery, March 2007

Copyright © 2008 The Community Security Trust

Executive summary 4

Introduction 5

Antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2007 6

Extreme Violence 6

Assault 6

Damage and Desecration of Property 7

Threats 8

Abusive Behaviour 8

Literature 10

Victims 11

Perpetrators and motives 11

Trigger events and baseline levels 13

Typology of incidents: mission, opportunistic or aggravated 14

High Holy Days: a case study 14

Antisemitic incidents on and off campus 16

Geographical locations and differences 18

Information Collection and Suspicious Behaviour 19

Graphs and tables

CST antisemitic incidents September 2007 15

Geographical breakdown of antisemitic incidents in the UK 2007 18

Antisemitic incidents category totals 2007 21

Annual incidents figures by category 1998 - 2007 21

Annual incidents figures full breakdown 2007 21

Annual incidents figures since 1998 22

Monthly incidents figures 1998 - 2007 22

Antisemitic Incidents Report 2007 / 3

Contents

The text and illustrations may only be reproduced with prior permission of The Community Security Trust.

� 547 antisemitic incidents were recorded byCST in 2007. This is the second-highestannual total since CST began recordingantisemitic incidents in 1984.

� The total of 547 incidents is an eight per centfall from the 2006 total of 594 incidents.However, this fall is not large enough to alterthe long-term trend of rising antisemiticincidents in Britain since the late 1990s.

� The fall in the number of incidents in 2007is due to the absence of ‘trigger events’that can cause temporary increases inincidents. In 2006 there was a significanttrigger event, the war between Israel andHizbollah in Lebanon, which led to a largerise in antisemitic incidents in the UK.

� There were 114 violent antisemitic assaultsin 2007, the highest ever recorded by CST.This included one incident that wasclassified as Extreme Violence, meaningthat the victim’s life was endangered.Violent assaults were the only category ofincident to increase in 2007 and make upan increasing proportion of antisemiticincidents in the UK, from 13 per cent of thetotal in 2002, up to 21 per cent in 2007.

� Incidents of Damage and Desecration toJewish property fell by 11 per cent, from 70 incidents in 2006 to 62 incidents in 2007.

� There were 328 incidents of AbusiveBehaviour in 2007, a fall of ten per centfrom the 365 incidents recorded in 2006.This category includes verbal abuse, hate-mail and antisemitic graffiti on non-Jewishproperty.

� September was the joint fourth-highestmonthly total on record. Of the 78 incidentsrecorded during the month, 35 took placeon the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and YomKippur, when there are relatively large

numbers of visibly Jewish people on thestreets, walking to and from synagogue.

� In 59 incidents the victims were Jewishstudents, academics or other student bodies.This is a 228 per cent rise from 2006,probably because of increased reporting bystudents to CST. Out of 59 incidents, 31 tookplace on campus and 28 off campus. Sixincidents occurred in the direct context ofstudent political campaigning.

� In 282 antisemitic incidents the victimswere individual Jewish people in publicplaces. In 189 of these, the victims werevisibly identifiable as Jewish.

� Synagogues were the target in 67 incidents,and congregants on their way to or fromprayer were the targets in 64 incidents.

� Jewish schools or schoolchildren were thetargets in 47 incidents, of which 31 wereagainst Jewish schoolchildren on theirjourneys to or from school.

� There were six cases of Jewish or pro-Israelwebsites being hacked and defaced. In allsix cases, the hackers appeared to beIslamist extremists based outside the UK.

� The lack of trigger events from the MiddleEast in 2007 meant the number ofantisemitic incidents that included anti-Zionist discourse fell from 106 in 2006 to46 in 2007, while the number that includedneo-Nazi discourse rose slightly, from 125in 2006 to 127 in 2007.

� In addition to the 547 antisemitic incidentsrecorded by CST in 2007, a further 488reports of potential incidents werereceived by CST, but not included in thetotal number of antisemitic incidents asthere was no evidence of antisemiticmotivation, targeting or content.

4 / Antisemitic Incidents Report 2007

Executive summary

The Community Security TrustThe Community Security Trust (CST) advisesand represents the Jewish community onmatters of antisemitism, terrorism, policingand security. CST received charitable statusin 1994 and is recognised by Governmentand Police as a model of a minoritycommunity security organisation.

CST provides security advice and training forJewish schools, synagogues and communalorganisations and gives assistance to thosebodies that are affected by antisemitism. CSTalso assists and supports individual members ofthe Jewish community who have been affectedby antisemitism and antisemitic incidents. All this work is provided at no charge.

An essential part of CST’s work involvesrepresenting the Jewish community to Police,legislative and policy-making bodies andproviding people inside and outside theJewish community with information tocombat antisemitism.

CST has recorded antisemitic incidents in theUnited Kingdom since 1984.

Reporting of incidentsCST classifies as an antisemitic incident anymalicious act aimed at Jewish people, organi-sations or property, where there is evidencethat the act has antisemitic motivation orcontent, or that the victim was targetedbecause they are (or are believed to be)Jewish. Incidents can take several forms,including physical attacks on people orproperty, verbal or written abuse, threats orantisemitic leaflets and posters. CST does notinclude the general activities of antisemiticorganisations in its statistics; nor does itinclude antisemitic material that ispermanently hosted on internet websites.

Antisemitic incidents are reported to CST in a number of ways, most commonly by

telephone, email or post. Incidents can bereported by the victim or by someone actingon their behalf. In 2001 CST was accordedthird-party reporting status by the Police,which allows CST to report antisemiticincidents to the Police and to act as a go-between for victims who are unable or unwilling to report to the Police directly.CST works closely with Police services andspecialist units in monitoring and investi-gating antisemitic incidents.

Not all antisemitic incidents will be reported to CST and therefore the true figures will behigher than those recorded. No adjustmentshave been made to the figures to account forthis. It is likely that this non-reporting alsovaries from category to category: for instance,while most antisemitic assaults are probablyreported to CST, it is likely that the vastmajority of cases of verbal abuse are not. Allreports of incidents are investigated thoroughlybefore being included in CST’s incidentstatistics. If there is no evidence that anincident is antisemitic then it is not included: in 2007 CST received 488 reports of potentialincidents that were rejected for this reason,and are not included in the total number ofantisemitic incidents. These represent 47 percent of the potential incidents reported to CSTand mostly involved criminal damage to, ortheft from, Jewish property, assaults on ortheft from Jewish people, or suspicious activityaround Jewish locations, where CST believesthere was no evidence of antisemiticmotivation, targeting or content.

CST takes the wishes of victims, bothindividuals and the heads of Jewish organi-sations or communal buildings, veryseriously. In particular, CST treats the issueof victim confidentiality as a top priority. If the victim chooses to remain anonymous,or wishes there to be no publicity about anincident, CST will observe their wishwhenever possible.


Introduction

CST recorded 547 antisemitic incidents in theUK in 2007. This is the second-highest annualtotal since CST began recording antisemiticincidents in 1984, and is an eight per cent fallfrom the 2006 figure of 594 incidents, thehighest annual total so far recorded by CST.The reduction in incidents is due to the absenceof significant ‘trigger events’ in 2007, partic-ularly from the Middle East, in contrast to 2006when the record high number of incidents wasa consequence of reactions to the war inLebanon between Israel and Hizbollah.

Because there were no trigger events in 2007to cause the kind of temporary spikes inincident levels seen in the past, the 547incidents that form the basis of this report canbe used to form a rough picture of thebaseline level and nature of antisemiticincidents in Britain. Despite this lack of triggerevents, the fall of eight per cent is not largeenough to alter the long-term trend of risinglevels of antisemitic incidents since the late1990s, as shown by the graph on page 22.

CST classifies antisemitic incidents by sixdistinct categories: Extreme Violence;Assault; Damage and Desecration ofProperty; Threats; Abusive Behaviour;Antisemitic Literature. The definitions ofthese categories, and examples of theincidents that occurred in each one in 2007,are given below. In addition, and notincluded in the antisemitic incident figures,CST collects and analyses incidents ofpotential reconnaisance against the Jewishcommunity by hostile groups and individuals,and criminal activity at Jewish locations.

Extreme ViolenceIncidents of Extreme Violence include anyattack potentially causing loss of life orGrievous Bodily Harm (GBH). There was one incident of Extreme Violence in 2007,compared with four in 2006.

The incident of Extreme Violence in 2007involved an elderly rabbi in the north east ofEngland who was walking along a pavementwhen a car driver mounted the pavement atspeed, knocked him over, then reversed andtried to run him over again. The rabbirequired hospital treatment for injuries to hishead, arms and legs. The driver of the carhas so far not been identified.

AssaultIncidents of Assault include any physicalattack against a person or people, which doesnot pose a threat to their life and is not GBH.

CST recorded 113 incidents of Assault in 2007.By combining this with the number of incidentsof Extreme Violence – one – we can see the fullrange of physical attacks on Jews. This gives atotal of 114 antisemitic assaults, the highestnumber ever recorded by CST in a single yearand a small increase from the 112 incidents ofAssault and Extreme Violence recorded in 2006.Worryingly, this is the only type of incident thatdid not fall in number in 2007. Physical assaultshave risen considerably in number over thelong term, from 17 in 1998 to 114 in 2007, andalso make up an increasing proportion of theoverall number of incidents. In 2000, 2001 and2002, incidents of Assault and ExtremeViolence made up 13 per cent of the overalltotal. This figure has risen steadily since thenand in 2007 physical attacks against Jewsconstituted 21 per cent of the overall figure of547 incidents. This suggests that antisemiticincidents are becoming more violent over thelong term, as well as more numerous.

Of the 114 incidents of Assault or ExtremeViolence recorded in 2007, 99 were random,opportunistic attacks on Jewish people inpublic places. Visibly Jewish people were thetargets in 78 incidents, usually due to theirreligious or traditional clothing. In at least sixof the 114 incidents, the victims required


Antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2007

hospital treatment for their injuries. Therewere 22 attacks on congregants who were ontheir way to or from synagogue, while 14were on Jewish schoolchildren. Particulartargets for this kind of incident are the strictlyOrthodox communities in Salford and Bury innorth Manchester, and Golders Green, Hendonand Stamford Hill in north London.

Incidents in the category of Assault in 2007include:

� A visibly Jewish student was walkingthrough east London at night when a groupof attackers shouted antisemitic abuse athim. They called him “kyke” and threw a glass bottle which hit him on the head. The student went to hospital where a piece of glass was removed from hisscalp and he was given stitches.

� A strictly Orthodox Jewish student inWolverhampton was chased by a group of white youths who called him a “fuckingJew” and punched him. Six of the youthswere arrested and later released with apolice caution.

� A Jewish couple were leaving a cinema innorth west London when a group of blackyouths shouted antisemitic abuse andthrew stones at them.

� Three Jewish schoolgirls were on a Londonbus after leaving school when a group ofboys from another school said: “It’sdisgusting being on a bus with all theseJews”. They then kicked one of theschoolgirls and spat in the face of another.

� A visibly Jewish man was leaving hissynagogue in north Manchester when a group of white youths called him a“fucking Jew”, threw bricks at him andpunched him in the head.

� A visibly Jewish man was walking along aroad in north London when a van containing

four Asian men pulled up alongside. Theoccupants threw bottles at him and shouted:“Hitler should have finished you” before gettingout of the van to punch and kick him.

Damage and Desecration of PropertyThis category includes any physical attackdirected against Jewish property, which is not life-threatening. This would include thedaubing of antisemitic slogans or symbols(such as swastikas), including stickers andposters, on Jewish property, or damagecaused to Jewish property, where it appearsthat the building has been specificallytargeted because of its Jewish connection.

There were 62 incidents of Damage andDesecration in 2007, a fall of 11 per cent fromthe 2006 figure of 70 incidents. Of the 62incidents, 19 occurred at people’s homes, ten involved the desecration of synagoguesand there were six desecrations of Jewishcemeteries. There were 17 incidents thatinvolved the daubing of swastikas or otherNazi references or imagery.

Incidents of Damage and Desecration in2007 include:

� A swastika and the words “Hitler willreturn” were daubed on a wall outside aJewish youth club in north west London.


� Six cases of Jewish or pro-Israeli websiteswere hacked into and abusive messagesleft in place of the usual website content.In two of the incidents, the websites ofJewish youth movements were defacedwith the slogan “Al Qaeda was here”. In all six cases, the hackers appeared to beIslamist extremists based outside the UK.

� 11 headstones were daubed withswastikas at a Jewish cemetery in Surrey.

� Around 60 headstones were damaged intwo separate desecrations at a Jewishcemetery in Yorkshire.

� “BNP” was daubed on a sign at the entranceto a Jewish care home in Manchester.

� “We hate Jews” was daubed on the garageof a Jewish family’s home in north westLondon.

ThreatsThis category includes only direct threats,whether verbal or written.

There were 24 antisemitic threats recorded in2007, a fall of 11 per cent from the 2006total of 27 threats. The 24 threats includedtwo bomb threats.

Incidents in the category of Threats in 2007include:

� A person left a message on the answerphoneof a synagogue in Brighton and Hove whichsaid: “Now listen up you Jewish bastards. Wewill kill you, we’re watching you. You will pay,pay for what you did to the white race.”

� A white man wearing an Osama Bin Ladenmask got out of a car outside a Jewishbuilding in north Manchester and shouted:“Fucking Jews, gonna blow you up.”

� A visibly Jewish student was walking througha park in Leeds when he was approached by

two Asian men. One of them asked him if hewas Jewish, and then said: “If I ever seeyou again in Hyde Park, I will blow you up.”

� A Jewish man was threatened at hisworkplace in Essex by a colleague whoshouted “Heil Hitler”, gave a Nazi saluteand then told him he would make his“fucking head roll”.

� An organisation that was planning aconference in London about Darfur had amessage posted on its website bysomebody who promised to shoot Israelivisitors to Darfur and then wrote: “I’llcome to stop your Zionism, black Muslimswill come to the conference to show thatyour Zionism must be stopped at all costsyou Zionist looser (sic).”

Abusive BehaviourThis category includes verbal and writtenantisemitic abuse. The verbal abuse can beface-to-face or via telephone or answerphonemessages. The category also includesantisemitic emails and text messages, as wellas targeted antisemitic letters (that is, thoseaimed at and sent to a specific individual),irrespective of whether or not the recipient isJewish. This is different from a mass mailingof antisemitic leaflets or other publications,which is dealt with by the separate Literaturecategory. Antisemitic graffiti on non-Jewishproperty is also included in this category.

There were 328 incidents of Abusive Behaviourreported to CST in 2007, a fall of ten per centfrom the 365 incidents reported in 2006. It is the second-highest total recorded in thiscategory since CST’s records began and is onlythe second time that CST has recorded over300 incidents in this category.

Incidents of Abusive Behaviour in 2007include:

� A rabbi was walking away from asynagogue in Glasgow when a group


of white youths drove past him andshouted: “Hitler won’t miss you next time.”

� “Hitler was right” and “Gas the Jews” weredaubed on a war memorial in Ayrshire.

� A group of Jewish schoolchildren werevisiting the Holocaust section of a Londonmuseum. A group of soldiers from theBritish Army were also visiting the exhibitand three of them made antisemiticcomments to the Jewish children,including “Heil Hitler”. The abuse wasreported to the Army who promised to investigate the incident.

� Film clips of supporters of West HamUnited Football Club singing “I’d rather bea Paki than a Jew” and “I’ve got a foreskinhaven’t you, fucking Jew” during theirmatch against Tottenham Hotspur, a clubwidely identified as having Jewishsupporters, were posted on the YouTubewebsite. Matthew Adam Maynard, whowas accused of filming the chanting andposting it on YouTube, received acommunity service order after pleadingguilty to indecent or racial chanting at a football match and distributing theoffensive material.

� Two Asian students at a further educationcollege in north London told a Jewishclassmate that all problems were “theJews’ fault”. When challenged, they saidthat their comments weren’t racist butwere merely a different political view.

� A Jewish organisation received an emailthat read: “You have in Israel a wonderfulNazi like killing machine (thousands ofPalestinians have died or are incarceratedin camps, including Gaza and the WestBank) backed by the world’s richest Jewsand America…we in the UK have hadenough of Israel, we (the NUJ of which I am a member) have finally voted toboycott Israeli goods…shame on you,

shame on all Jews, may your lives becursed.”

� An organisation which campaigns against theacademic boycott of Israel received an emailthat read: “Let me tell you that Jewscommand no respect and deserve nosympathy, because they are evil by natureand rotten to the core. The illegal Israeli hasits base in terrorism (sic). There was no legalor moral justification for uprooting theinnocent Palestinians and confiscating theirland by the scum of the earth know as Jews(sic). The Jews once blessed people defiedand played tricks with God turned out to bethe most greedy, cunning and ungrateful one(sic)…I firmly believe that all Jews will burn inhell and in comparison Auschwitz will be like aholiday camp. It is never too late for the Jewsto reflect on their misdeeds and repentbecause God is Great and Compassionate”.The email was referred by Police to the CrownProsecution Service, who declined toprosecute the alleged sender of the email.

� A Jewish man was walking down a road in north Manchester when an Asian youthdrove past and shouted, “You JewishBastard” at him. The perpetrator wastraced by the Police and admitted theoffence. He was given rehabilitation workwith the local Youth Offending Team.

� An elderly Auschwitz survivor in northwest London was given a parking fine.When he approached the parkingattendant he was told that Israel is killing people.

� An exhibit at a wildlife centre in London whichcontained birds from Israel was daubed with aswastika and the word “scum”.

� A Jewish person in north west London was told by an East European man: “Go back to Israel, go to Palestine.” The man then shouted “Heil Hitler” and gave a Nazi salute.


� A woman was sat on the steps in TrafalgarSquare reading the Jewish Chronicle whena man walked past her and called her a“Jewish bitch”.

LiteratureThis category covers the distribution ofmass-produced antisemitic literature. Theliterature must be part of a mass mailingrather than cases of individual hate-mail,which would come under the category ofAbusive Behaviour or Threats (depending oncontent). The Literature category includesliterature that is antisemitic in itself,irrespective of whether or not the recipient isJewish, or cases where Jews are specificallytargeted for malicious distribution, even ifthe material itself is not antisemitic. Thiswould include, for instance, the mass mailing

of neo-Nazi literature to Jewish homes, evenif the literature did not mention Jews. Thiscategory also includes emails that are sent togroups of recipients, but not material that isgenerally available on websites.

The statistics for the category of Literaturegive no indication of the extent of distribution.Mass mailings of antisemitic literature are onlycounted as one incident, although someantisemitic leaflets have been circulated tohundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish individualsand organisations. Thus the number ofincidents reflects the number of perpetrators,rather than the number of victims.

There were 19 Literature incidents in 2007, a slight fall from the 20 incidents recorded inthis category in 2006. This was the third year


Hate mail, north London, August 2007

in a row that the number of Literatureincidents fell, after a large rise in 2004. Nine of the 19 incidents reported to CSTtargeted synagogues.

Examples of Literature incidents in 2007include:

� Several Jewish and non-Jewish organi-sations received a copy of a letter whichread: “The Jewish people as a nationtoday seem to be in denial over the parttheir forefathers played in the crucifixionof Jesus…”

� A copy of the Holocaust denial pamphlet“The Truth at Last – Did Six Million ReallyDie?” was sent to a Jewish person inGlasgow as part of the packaging of anitem he had bought over the internet.

� Various Jewish organisations received a lengthy antisemitic email titled “SecretJewish War against Humanity Uncovered”.

� Several people received an email thatread: “You put Jews in charge of anythingand you can kiss all your investmentsgoodbye. That’s what they are known for,embezzlements, extortions, theft, lies anddeceptions… When Jews take over acommunity, they also take over thebusinesses and the property. Once theproperty is in the Jews' hands, it neverleaves. Once a Jew has a business andclout in the community, all the Jew willhire is other Jews, and the Gentiles theJew can rule with an iron rod. Thismeans that the only Gentile the Jew will hire, once he gets his hooks into a community, will be the Gentile who is tortured, raped, and who has fallencaptive to the Jew, and who suffersongoing degradations and humiliations in the Jews' hands. The Gentiles whorefuse to obey the commands of the Jewwill die.” The author signed off with thewords “Heil Hitler”.

VictimsThe victims of antisemitic incidents comefrom the whole spectrum of the Jewishcommunity, from strictly Orthodox to Liberal,Reform and secular Jews; from the largestJewish communities of London andManchester to small, isolated communities allover the United Kingdom; and from Jewishschoolchildren to Members of Parliament.

In 282 incidents, the victims were ordinaryJewish people, male or female, attacked at random while going about their dailybusiness in public places. In 189 of these,the victims were visibly Jewish, usually due to their religious or traditional clothing,school uniform or items of jewellery.

Synagogue property and staff were the targetsin 67 incidents, and a further 64 incidentsaffected congregants on their way to or fromprayers. Schools were the location of 16incidents, and an additional 31 incidents involvedJewish schoolchildren on their journeys to andfrom school. There were 59 incidents againstJewish students, academics and other studentbodies, while 51 incidents happened to people in their homes.

The targets in 43 incidents were Jewishcommunal organisations and their events,including representative bodies, youthmovements, welfare and cultural organi-sations. The victims of 21 incidents werecommunal leaders, politicians, journalists or other high-profile individuals.

Perpetrators and motivesIdentifying the motives and ethnicity of theperpetrators of antisemitic incidents can be a difficult and imprecise activity. Manyantisemitic incidents involve publicencounters where the antisemitic abuse maybe generic, brief and sometimes non-verbal.In cases involving physical or verbal abuse, it depends on the evidence of victims of, andwitnesses to, antisemitic incidents, and mayrely on the perpetrators’ physical


appearance, language or other indicators. It is obviously an easier task to analyse, forinstance, a sample of hate-mail, where thecontent of an antisemitic letter often revealsthe political motivation of the perpetrator,although it would be a mistake to assume to know the ethnicity of a hate-mail senderon the basis of the discourse in contains.

A physical description of the perpetrator wasprovided in 243 of the 547 incidents recordedby CST 1. Of these, 129 were white; 15 wereEast European; 27 were black; 52 were Asianand 14 were of Arab appearance. Thereforethere were white perpetrators in 53 per cent– or just over half – of incidents where aphysical description of the perpetrator wasgiven. These figures partly reflect the factthat Britain’s Jewish communities tend to livein relatively diverse urban areas. Events

during the year also have an impact on theethnicity of incident perpetrators. Thepercentage of perpetrators of antisemiticincidents who are identified as being of Asianor Arab appearance tends to fluctuateaccording to whether the trigger events forantisemitism in a particular year are relatedto the Middle East. This figure stood at 38per cent of identified incident perpetrators in2004 and 34 per cent in 2006, when therewere significant trigger events from theMiddle East, but fell to 30 per cent in 2005and 27 per cent in 2007, two years in whichthere were fewer trigger events from thatpart of the world.

Analysing the content of incidents can alsohelp to identify the motives of incidentperpetrators. In 2007, 46 incidents includeddirect reference to Israel and the Middle


Antisemitic graffiti, North London, January 2007

1 CST uses the ‘IC1-6’ system, used by the Metropolitan Police Service and others, for categorising the

ethnic appearance of incident perpetrators. This uses the codes IC1, IC2, IC3 etc, for ‘white’, ‘East or

Dark European’, ‘black’, ‘Asian’, ‘Far Eastern’ and ‘Arab’ respectively. This is obviously not a foolproof

system and can only be used as a rough guide: for example, an East European perpetrator could

potentially be described as IC1 or IC2, depending on whether an incident victim or witness is capable

of identifying their nationality by their appearance, accent, language or some other indicator.


East, of which 34 were overtly anti-Zionist as well as involving clear antisemitism. By comparison, in 2006 there were 106incidents that referred directly to Israel orthe Middle East, and 86 that were overtlyanti-Zionist as well as antisemitic. This sharpfall in the number and proportion of incidentscontaining anti-Israel discourse alongsideantisemitism is probably a reflection of thelack of trigger events from the Middle East in 2007. In contrast, the number of incidentsthat involved the use of neo-Nazi discourseremained fairly constant, from 125 in 2006to 127 in 2007, while 87 incidents in 2007had an obvious far right motivation andpolitical content, up from 74 incidents in 2006.

There is not necessarily a direct correlationbetween the discourse used in an antisemiticincident and the ethnicity of the perpetrator.One feature of contemporary antisemitism is the fact that the use of far right referencesis no longer the preserve of neo-Nazis; nor ismention of Israel and the Middle East solelythe favoured expression of Muslim or Arabperpetrators of incidents. Also, someincidents involve the simultaneous use ofneo-Nazi and anti-Zionist discourse by thesame perpetrator. It is more accurate to saythat Israel and the Nazi period are both usedby antisemites of all backgrounds as sourcesfor material to use when abusing Jews.

Trigger events and baseline levels It is well established that trigger events inBritain and, especially, in the Middle East,that are perceived to involve Jews or Israel insome way, can spark a temporary rise in antisemitic incidents against British Jews. In 2006, Israel’s war against Hizbollah inLebanon saw the largest such ‘spike’ inantisemitic incidents ever recorded by CST,when 134 incidents were recorded in the UKduring the 34 days of fighting. This was thesingle most important reason for the recordhigh of 594 antisemitic incidents recorded by CST in 2006. In contrast, in 2007 there

were no significant trigger events, eitherfrom the Middle East or in the UK, to causeany identifiable spike in antisemitic incidentsto distort the overall picture. Thus the figureof 547 incidents can be taken as a roughpicture of the baseline level of antisemitismin the UK.

Given this, the total of 547 incidents, while a welcome fall from the high of 2006, is nota cause for optimism. It maintains the long-term rise in antisemitic incidents since thelow of 219 incidents in 1997, an increase ofalmost 150 per cent in ten years. Althoughthis is partly explained by an improvement inthe reporting of antisemitic incidents and thegrowth of CST as a monitoring body, thesefactors are not enough to explain the steadyyear-on-year rise. What appears to havehappened is that the frequent trigger eventsthat have occurred in recent years havecaused the baseline level to graduallyincrease, instead of falling back to its originallevel after each spike in incidents.

The lack of trigger events also makes itpossible to assess the most common types of incident that make up this ‘backgroundantisemitism’, using the 547 incidentsrecorded in 2007 as a rough sample. Thisappears to confirm the picture that emergedin 2006, whereby temporary spikes inincident levels that are triggered by specificevents, such as the war in Lebanon, mainly consist of hate-mail or other forms of abusivecommunication to Jewish organisations orcommunal leadership. These incidents aremore premeditated and ‘political’ than theincidents of verbal harassment, abuse orphysical assault against individual Jews onthe street that typifies day-to-dayantisemitism in Britain today.

In 2007, for example, 52 per cent ofincidents targeted individual Jews in public,while Jewish organisations, synagogues orschools were the targets of 23 per cent. In 2006, however, proportionately fewer


incidents - just 38 per cent – involved thetargeting of individual Jews in public, whileJewish organisations, synagogues andschools were the targets of 33 per cent. In2007, 58 per cent of incidents involvedverbal abuse with 12 per cent coming by wayof hate mail; whereas in 2006, a ‘triggerevent’ year, hate mail was relatively morecommon, accounting for 22 per cent ofincidents, while verbal abuse was relativelyless common, accounting for 47 per cent.

Typology of incidents: mission,opportunistic or aggravated?A study of antisemitic incidents recorded bythe Metropolitan Police Service from 2001 –2004 2 defined ‘mission’ incidents as those inwhich “the offender takes some premeditatedaction to instigate the incident byengineering their interaction with the victim.In addition, antisemitism seemingly drivesthe offender’s actions – as manifest by theirlanguage or symbols they use” (Iganski et al,2005). Applying this definition to the 547antisemitic incidents recorded by CST in2007 reveals that 198 incidents, or 36 percent of the total, showed evidence of being‘mission’ incidents. By comparison, 161incidents, or 29 per cent, appeared to be‘opportunistic’, whereby “the offender takesimmediate advantage of an opportunity thatpresents itself to vent their antisemitism,rather than engineering the incident in apremeditated way” (Iganski et al, 2005).Examples of ‘mission’ incidents recorded in 2007 include:

� A vehicle was seen on two or threeoccasions in the space of two weeks, beingdriven round parts of north Manchesterwhere there is a large strictly OrthodoxJewish community. The occupants, whitemen wearing balaclava ski masks, threweggs at visibly Jewish pedestrians whileshouting antisemitic abuse.

� A man phoned a synagogue in Lancashireand left an answerphone message which

said: “Jew dog, gas sniffer, six millionwasn’t enough, your synagogue is on fire.”

� A Jewish man was standing in the frontgarden of his house in Manchester, when a group of white youths approached him,made abusive references to Hitler and theJews, and then threw a large stone at him.

There were 75 incidents, or 14 per cent,which may be categorised as ‘aggravated’incidents, whereby “the offender and victimare caught up in a conflict situation thatinitially does not involve antisemitism.However, in the course of the conflict theoffender’s bigotry emerges” (Iganski et al,2005). Examples of ‘aggravated’ incidentsrecorded by CST in 2007 include:

� A Jewish woman was stuck in heavy trafficafter collecting her children from a Jewishschool in Manchester. A driver trying topass her car in the opposite directionshouted out of his window: “You fuckingJewish bitch, move, now.”

� A Jewish man had fallen asleep on a nightbus in London. He woke up to find fourmen standing over him holding his jacket,which had been on the seat next to him.At that point the men saw his Star ofDavid necklace and called him a “fuckingJew”, punching him in the face. They thenstole his money and his phone and left the bus.

High Holy Days: a case studyThere were 78 antisemitic incidents recordedby CST in September 2007, the joint-fourthhighest monthly total since CST beganrecording antisemitic incidents in 1984.However, there were no trigger events duringthe month to provoke such a high number ofincidents. Instead, the high number appearsto have occurred because a series of Jewishfestivals, known as the High Holy Days, tookplace during September, most notably RoshHashanah (Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur

2 Iganski et al, “Hate Crimes against London’s Jews” (Institute for Jewish Policy Research, London 2005).

(Day of Atonement). These are days whenlarge numbers of Jewish people, even thosewho are normally not especially observant,will attend synagogue, and there arerelatively large numbers of visibly Jewishpeople on the streets, walking to or fromsynagogue. Synagogue congregants are a common target for antisemitic incidents,and were the victims in 64, or 12 per cent, of the 547 incidents recorded across the yearas a whole.

Of the 78 antisemitic incidents recorded byCST during September, 35 incidents – 45 percent – took place on the five days of themonth on which Rosh Hashanah and YomKippur occurred. This pattern can be seen inthe figures for previous years, although notin quite so acute a fashion: in 2006, therewere 18 antisemitic incidents, or 23 per centof the monthly total, on Rosh Hashanah andYom Kippur; in 2005, 15 incidents, or 33 percent of the monthly total; and in 2004, 18 incidents or 30 per cent of the monthlytotal. This dynamic also affects Saturdays,the Jewish Sabbath, when synagoguecongregants walk to or from prayers: in addition to the 35 incidents mentioned

above, a further 12 incidents (15 per cent) inSeptember 2007 took place on the otherSaturdays in the month, as shown in thetable above.

The type of incident that occurred on these twofestivals demonstrates this targeting ofsynagogues and their congregants. Of the 35 incidents, all but two involved synagoguebuildings, their staff and congregants. Of these,13 targeted congregants walking to or fromprayers, but who were not in the immediatevicinity of their synagogue building. Verbalabuse was used in 29 incidents, or 83 per cent,of which 26 involved abuse shouted from apassing vehicle. A disproportionately highnumber of incidents – 27, or 77 per cent –were in the category of Abusive Behaviour,while there were six incidents of Assault. This issignificantly different from the figures for 2007as a whole, in which 60 per cent of incidentswere of Abusive Behaviour, 21 per cent wereAssault, and 58 per cent involved verbal abuseof which a third were from a vehicle.

A physical description of the perpetrators wasobtained in 21 of the 35 incidents recordedon Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Of these,


0

3

6

9

12

15CST antisemitic incidents September 2007

78 incidents in the month, of which 35 (45%) were on the two main festivals:

12th - 14th: Rosh Hashanah (New Year) 21st - 22nd: Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

16, or 76 per cent, were white, one was EastEuropean, two black, one Asian and one ofArab appearance. Thus white perpetratorswere much more common on these days,and for this type of incident, than across2007 as a whole. Of the 35 incidents, 13took place in London and 13 in Manchester,with six incidents recorded in Hertfordshireand the others in Leeds (two) andBirmingham (one). By comparison, and as isexplained in further detail on page 18, for2007 as a whole there were 247 incidentsrecorded in London and 147 in Manchester.

Examples of incidents recorded by CST onRosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in 2007include:

� A group of ten black youths walked past asynagogue in London, verbally abused oneof the congregants and then assaultedhim, resulting in the victim needinghospital treatment.

� A white man walked past a synagogue in London, shouted “Jew boy”, sang aNational Front song and gave a Nazisalute.

� Two white men drove past a synagogue in Hertfordshire and shouted “Long livePalestine” at the security officer.

� A Jewish man was walking home fromsynagogue in Leeds when a white mandrove past him and shouted “Go back toIsrael” out of his car.

� A white man drove past a synagogue inHertfordshire and shouted “Yiddo” out ofhis car.

It is likely that as well as the increasednumber of visibly Jewish people in public onthese days, the relatively high number ofincidents recorded on the High Holy Days ispartly because the intensive CST and Policeoperations mean that there is better

reporting of antisemitic incidents. Firstly,there are more CST security officers or Policeofficers – often on joint patrols – to whomvictims of antisemitic incidents can reportincidents in person; and secondly, thoseextra security officers often witness theincidents taking place themselves. Of the 131 incidents recorded by CST whichinvolved the targeting of synagogues, theirstaff or congregants in 2007, 33, or 25 percent, were recorded on Rosh Hashanah andYom Kippur. It is highly unlikely that aquarter of these types of incidents took placeduring just five days of the year; it is muchmore likely that similar incidents during therest of the year go unreported.

Antisemitic incidents on and off campusThe 59 incidents recorded by CST in 2007 in which the victims were students, studentbodies or academics represent a considerablerise from the 18 incidents recorded of thattype in 2006, 11 in 2005 and 21 in 2004. It is most likely that this rise (228 per centfrom the 2006 figure) is largely because ofbetter reporting of incidents to CST. CST has,in recent years, invested a great deal ofeffort and resources in encouraging Jewishstudents to report antisemitic incidents,either directly to CST’s student securityofficers, or via the Union of Jewish Students.The large rise may also be partly due topolitical tensions on campuses. The ongoingcampaign to boycott Israeli academicscontinued during 2007, although fewincidents made direct reference to theboycott campaign and any indirect impact itmay have had on antisemitic incident levelsis difficult to quantify. Rather than indicatinga significant change in the environment inwhich Jewish students live and study, theincrease is more likely to mean that a truepicture is beginning to emerge of thechallenges faced by Jewish students on andoff campus.

The 59 incidents consisted of four physicalassaults, eight incidents of Damage and



Desecration to Jewish property, fourincidents in the category of Threats, 42incidents of Abusive Behaviour and oneincident which involved the mass-mailing ofantisemitic literature. Of the 59 incidents, 31took place on campus, and 28 occurred offcampus. Of the 31 incidents that took placeon campus, 12 involved direct contactbetween incident perpetrator and victim –for instance, by verbal abuse or physicalassault – while the remainder mostlyinvolved antisemitic graffiti or hate-mail. Alarger proportion of the incidents offcampus, 23 out of 28 incidents, involveddirect contact between perpetrator andvictim. Academics were the victims in twoincidents, student unions in six andstudents, either individually or collectively(for instance in cases of antisemitic graffitiin student buildings) in the other 51incidents recorded.

The locations of the 31 incidents recorded on campus included 11 universities and threefurther education colleges. Six on-campusincidents took place in the direct context of political campaigning. Other incidents thatinvolved political content, for instance incases of graffiti using swastikas or otherpolitical imagery or language, did not occurin the immediate setting of otherwiselegitimate political activity. Off campus, 13 of the 28 incidents recorded took place inLeeds, where there is a large Jewish studentbody. Other incidents took place off campusin Manchester, London, Birmingham andWolverhampton.

Examples of antisemitic incidents that tookplace on campus in 2007 include:

� Swastikas and other antisemitic graffitiwere scratched into the door of a Jewishstudent’s room in a hall of residence inNottingham, and into walls near his room.

� A Jewish student was taking part in ademonstration at Manchester University

when a Muslim student grabbed her posterfrom her and said that Jews will bebanned from campus.

� A Jewish student was handing out leafletsoutside a student union debate atManchester University when an Arabstudent called him “You Jewish bastard.”When challenged, the Arab student smiledand said: “Whoops, I mean you Israelibastard” and walked off.

� Swastikas were drawn on postersadvertising Jewish Book Week at theSchool of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS) in London.

� “Mossad caused 9/11” and “Fight theJewish terrorists” were written on a deskat Leeds Metropolitan University.

Smashed window, Grimsby, February 2007

Examples of antisemitic incidents that tookplace off campus include:

� A group of visibly Jewish students werewalking down a road in Birmingham whena white man drove past them and shouted“You fucking Jewish bastards” out of hiscar window.

� A visibly Jewish student was walkingthrough Leeds when the occupants of a passing vehicle shouted "Fucking Jew"and "Yid" at him.

� “I hate Jews” was written in the frost on the car window of a Jewish studentoutside her student house in Birmingham.Four weeks later “Jew” was again writtenin the frost on her car.

Geographical locations and differencesAlmost three-quarters of the 547 antisemiticincidents recorded in 2007 took place inGreater London and Greater Manchester,

the two largest Jewish communities in theUK. Of these, 247 incidents took place inLondon and 147 in Manchester. Thiscontinues the pattern whereby a dispropor-tionately high number of incidents (27 percent in 2007) take place in Manchester,despite the fact that only ten per cent ofBritish Jews live there. There were 37antisemitic incidents in Hertfordshire, 25 inLeeds – of which 21 affected students at thecity’s universities – 15 in Glasgow, ten inLiverpool and six each in Nottingham andBirmingham. Over half of the 247 incidents in London were recorded in the borough of Barnet, which has the largest Jewishcommunity of any London borough, while in Manchester 90 per cent of the incidentsrecorded by CST took place in the boroughsof Bury, Salford and Manchester.

The 247 antisemitic incidents that took placein London constitute an 18 per cent fall fromthe 2006 London total of 300 incidents,whereas the total in Manchester increased


Geographical breakdown of antisemitic incidents in the UK 2007

London

247 incidents

45%

Manchester

147 incidents

27%

Hertfordshire

37 incidents

7%

Leeds

25 incidents

5%

Birmingham, 6 incidents, 1%

Glasgow, 15 incidents, 3%

Liverpool, 10 incidents, 2%

Nottingham, 6 incidents, 1%

Other (36 locations)

54 incidents

10%

marginally from 144 in 2006 to 147 in 2007.It is likely that the reason for the largedecrease in incidents in London is because of the type of incident that made up theLebanon-related ‘spike’ in 2006. Theseincidents largely involved ‘mission’-typeincidents such as hate mail or abusive phonecalls to Jewish organisations or leadershipbodies, most of which are based in London.The absence of trigger events in 2007 meanta reduction in this kind of incident, andtherefore a fall in the number of incidents inLondon. This theory is supported by the factthat London incidents are more ‘mission’than ‘opportunistic’ – 40 per cent to 31 percent respectively in 2007 – whereas inManchester the comparable figures for 2007are 30 per cent for each.

Manchester sees more antisemitic incidentsper head of Jewish population than inLondon, but incident levels in London aremore reactive to trigger events fromoverseas. This would explain why incidentfigures in London tend to fluctuate, whilethose in Manchester do not show the samepattern. In London, CST recorded 311incidents in 2004, a year that included thesecond-highest monthly incident total everrecorded by CST after the Israeli assassi-nation of the leader of Hamas, Sheikh AhmedYassin, in Gaza in March; 213 incidents in2005, when there were no major triggerevents from the Middle East; 300 in 2006and 247 in 2007. In Manchester, in contrast,there were 94 incidents in 2004, 132 in2005, 144 in 2006 and 147 incidents in2007. The steady rise in incidents inManchester is partly, although not wholly,explained by better reporting of incidents by the local community, in response to theincreased efforts of CST and GreaterManchester Police.

Further differences between incident types inLondon and Manchester can be drawn out ofthe statistics. Incidents in Manchester aremore likely to target individual Jews in public

than in London (67 per cent of Manchesterincidents compared with 52 per cent ofLondon incidents). They are also more likelyto involve verbal abuse (Manchester: 69 percent of total; London: 53 per cent) ratherthan hate-mail (Manchester: three per cent of total; London: 16 per cent).

Incidents in London are more likely to includepolitical discourse: 24 per cent of incidents in London invoked neo-Nazi imagery orlanguage, and ten per cent made referenceto Israel or the Middle East, while inManchester the figures were 17 per cent and two per cent respectively. Thirty sevenper cent of identified incident perpetrators inLondon were white, compared with 70 percent in Manchester. In both cities, antisemiticincidents tended to be more violent thenacross the UK: 26 per cent of incidents inLondon and 24 per cent in Manchester werein the category of Assault, compared with 21 per cent nationally.

Information Collection and SuspiciousBehaviourOne of the most important jobs CST does is to record and analyse incidents ofInformation Collection and Suspicious


Suspicious Behaviour, north London, March 2007

Behaviour around Jewish locations. It is well known that terrorist groups often collectinformation about their targets beforelaunching an attack. Preventing the gatheringof this kind of information is an integral partof CST's work in protecting the communityfrom the danger of terrorism. Jewishcommunities have long been the targets ofterrorists of different and varied political andreligious motivations. Between 1968 and2003 there were 413 terrorist attacks,attempted attacks and foiled terrorist plotsagainst Jewish communities and Israelitargets around the world3 . Most recently,Jewish communities in Turkey, Morocco andTunisia have all been attacked by al-Qaedaand its supporters, while plots to attackJewish communities in Germany, Australiaand the United States have been foiled byPolice action. Here in the UK, a group ofIslamist extremists jailed in April 2007 forplotting terrorist attacks in Britain werefound to have downloaded lists ofsynagogues from the internet, possibly as potential targets for attack.

Cases of Information Collection andSuspicious Behaviour are not included in theantisemitic incident statistics, as themotivation for many of them is not possibleto determine. The vague and uncertainnature of many of these incidents means thatthey are easier to analyse if the twocategories are combined, rather than treatedseparately. Taken together, there were 164such incidents reported to CST in 2007,similar to the 2006 total of 168 incidents and the 167 incidents recorded in 2005.

Of the 164 incidents of InformationCollection and Suspicious Behaviour reportedto CST in 2007, 34 involved the photographyor videoing of Jewish buildings, while in 15cases suspicious people tried to gain entryto Jewish premises. Although most of the164 incidents will almost certainly haveinnocent explanations, neither CST nor thePolice underestimate the threat posed toJewish communities by al-Qaeda and otherterrorist organisations and networks.Preventing this kind of information gatheringand surveillance of community buildings orother potential terrorist targets is animportant part of reducing the possibility of future terrorist attacks.


3 “Terrorist Incidents Against Jewish Communities and Israeli Citizens Abroad, 1968-2003”

(The Community Security Trust, London 2004)


Category 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

1. Extreme Violence 0 0 2 1 5 0 4 2 4 12. Assault 17 33 51 40 42 54 79 80 108 1133. Damage & Desecration 31 25 73 90 55 72 53 48 70 624. Threats 16 31 39 37 18 22 93 25 27 245. Abusive Behaviour 136 127 196 122 216 211 272 273 365 3286. Literature 36 54 44 20 14 16 31 27 20 19TOTAL 236 270 405 310 350 375 532 455 594 547

Annual incidents figures by category 1998-2007

Category Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Totals

1. Extreme Violence 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 12. Assault 8 12 5 10 5 14 10 10 13 11 11 4 1133. Damage & Desecration 4 6 1 10 5 4 8 2 5 4 8 5 624. Threats 5 3 3 2 3 0 0 5 0 2 0 1 245. Abusive Behaviour 15 17 26 35 21 21 40 30 55 34 15 19 3286. Literature 0 2 1 2 1 0 2 2 5 3 0 1 19TOTAL 32 40 36 59 35 40 60 49 78 54 34 30 547

Annual incidents figures full breakdown

Antisemitic incidents category totals 2007

Assault

113 incidents

20.7%

Abusive Behaviour

328 incidents

60%

Literature

19 incidents, 3.5%

Extreme Violence

1 incidents, 0.2%

Damage & Desecration

62 incidents

11.3%

Threats

24 incidents

4.4%


Annual incidents figures since 1998

600

575

550

525

500

475

450

425

400

375

350

325

300

275

250

225

2001998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

January 14 26 37 16 15 23 20 60 33 32

February 16 19 19 14 11 24 28 45 56 40

March 20 18 25 20 26 48 100 39 40 36

April 23 34 35 33 47 29 62 49 33 59

May 22 29 29 32 47 27 39 41 44 35

June 38 21 24 30 26 34 64 37 37 40

July 18 20 29 28 31 30 48 41 94 60

August 18 18 16 20 15 20 29 32 78 49

September 14 25 23 50 47 22 60 27 66 78

October 20 23 105 48 45 57 29 44 59 54

November 11 24 42 14 28 36 29 22 35 34

December 22 13 21 5 12 25 24 18 19 30

TOTAL 236 270 405 310 350 375 532 455 594 547

Monthly incidents figures 1998 - 2007

London (Head Office) 020 8457 9999

Manchester (Northern Regional Office) 0161 792 6666

www.thecst.org.uk

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Published by The Community Security Trust

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