Antisemitic Incidents Increase Again

Our news report on 26th March quoted Dr Dave Rich, Director of Policy at the Community Security Trust (CST), as saying:

"All the opinion polling shows us, across the population as a whole,
this is actually one of the least antisemitic countries there is ."

Yet, despite that, antisemitism is a major problem in the UK. The CST have just published a report on antisemitic incidents in the UK during the first half of 2026, revealing a 21 percent increase in the number of incidents compared to the same period in 2025.

And the total of 1,926 incidents is higher than the figure of 1,652 incidents in all 12 months of 2022 - the last full year before the 7th October attack

The monthly average for the first half of 2026 was 321 incidents, which represents a 99 percent increase over the average of 161 antisemitic incidents per month that was recorded in the six months leading up to 7th October 2023. The events of that day and the subsequent conflicts have prompted a significant increase in antisemitism.

135 of the 2026 incidents, or 7 percent, were classed as assault - an 82 percent increase compared to the first half of 2025 and the highest ever six-monthly total in that category.

Most concerning within that picture is that the proportion of school-related incidents classed as assault was higher than the overall proportion at 12 percent, suggesting that antisemitism is an
even greater problem among young people.