Anti-Semitic incidents rise to record

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Reuters (UK)

LONDON (Reuters) - A record number of anti-Semitic incidents took place in Britain last year mainly sparked by Israel's Gaza offensive against Hamas militants, a Jewish advisory body said on Friday.

The Community Security Trust (CST), an organisation which advises Britain's estimated 300,000 Jews on safety issues, said it had been notified of 924 incidents in 2009.

That was the highest number since it began collating figures in 1984, and a 55 percent increase on the previous record figure registered in 2006.

"These record figures show that anti-Semitism is an increasingly significant problem for British Jews," said CST spokesman Mark Gardner.

"The trend must be reversed and we call upon decent people to speak out against anti-Semitism in all its forms."


Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE61403V20100205

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See also: Gordon Brown 'troubled' by CST antisemitism report

[Forkboy]

1. As things is the world get worse, and resources get scarcer...

...more and more people are looking for someone to blame. We tend to rarely blame the actual people responsible and instead take it out on convenient targets of traditional hate, be it minorities, Jews, the poor. My fear is that as this century progresses (or perhaps I should say regresses) that we'll see more and more incidents of anti-Semitism and hate crimes. Slowly but surely we're all being pitted neighbor against neighbor, ethnicity against ethnicity, just to survive. It won't be getting better any time soon. Just the opposite.

[aquart]

2. What a surprise.

I'm shocked. Britain. Really.

[Odin2005]

3. It's sad. Wasn't their 19th century PM Benjamin Disraeli of Jewish ancestry?