OPINION: U.K. better than most of Europe at reporting anti-Semitism

[Behind the Aegis]

The half-yearly figures for anti-Semitic incidents in Britain released Thursday by the Community Security Trust (CST) show yet another unwelcome rise, this time by 9 percent since last year.

This follows several years of increasing numbers of racist attacks against British Jews, and would appear to support the widely-held belief that Britain has a particular problem with anti-Semitism.

Where statistics are concerned, though, it is always worth looking a little deeper to understand what they really show.

One reason why Britain repeatedly records more anti-Semitic incidents than most other European countries is simply because Britain, and the British Jewish community, is better at recording attacks on Jews. CST has been recording anti-Semitic incidents since 1984.

Our network of 3,000 volunteers and security officers in hundreds of Jewish buildings and organizations around the country work to ensure that Jewish people know who to contact if they suffer anti-Semitism. Having said that, many people who are victims of hate crimes do not always report it to CST or to the police.

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