ByJonathan Kalmus, Jonathan Kalmus
For the first time, the Community Security Trust has acknowledged that there has been a real increase in antisemitic incidents in Prestwich, as opposed to a rise simply caused by more effective crime reporting.
According to the CST, there were 89 hate incidents in the first six months of 2010 in the King's Road area .
Addressing the Manchester Jewish Representative Council on Sunday, a CST spokesman said that the community was failing to report verbal abuse. He told delegates: "If we don't make an issue of it, it can turn into a far more violent attack in the future."
Rep Council vice-president Michael Samuels said: "The kind of vigilance we have to have these days is quite terrifying. We are in the soup more than we think we are."
But after nearly two hours of discussions on recent and past anti-Israel campaigns, Whitefield accountant Michael Rubinstein lashed out. He said: "All we've learned is a tiny fraction more than what we did before, but no one has said what we are going to do to stop this happening."
ZCC director Karen Solomon said later that she would be asking Manchester synagogues to restart their Israel committees, which she said were effective during the 1980s in attracting support from younger people.