‘The Jewish community is determined to stand up and be counted’

CST has dealt with 4,500 complaints of antisemitism in the past nine months alone. Some of them had been violent, but the majority had consisted of verbal abuse and threatening behaviour, with Jewish students being “at the sharpest end of things”, he said.

Mark Gardner, CST chief executive said that antisemitism in the UK had been at a record high since October 7(Photo: Omaggio)[Missing Credit]

The worst cases of antisemitism were during the first week of the war, “which proves that antisemitism is not a response to what Israel does or what it’s alleged to do. Instead, antisemites use the Middle East as an excuse to act out their Jew hatred. It’s Jewish death and vulnerability that excites them the most.”

Saying that he shared some of the Jewish community’s concerns about the police’s handling of antisemitism at anti-Israel protests, Gardner said that the policing at these demonstrations was “much better now than it was in October and November. People are being arrested for things [and] that previously would never have occurred. In previous wars, demonstrations had widespread violence and support for terrorism by Hamas and Hezbollah. None of that now happens.”

He added that the police “do a lot of things very well, which, by definition, you don’t see. There have been terrorism cases which came from the police [to CST] or from CST, which were reported to the police. For months, the police were stationed in our 24/7 control centre, mainly over Shabbat.”

Gardner was part of a wider communal update, which included reports from the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies, the Union of Jewish Students, Bicom and UJIA.