UK Jewry experts cast doubt on rise in anti-Semitism

Despite several claims of a marked increase in the level of anti-Semitism in the UK in recent years, a new academic study points to a much less alarmist position when excluding last year’s record peak due to the Gaza conflict.

 

Dr. Jonathan Boyd, Jewish Policy Research’s executive director – whose specialty is the study of contemporary Jewry – has co-authored “Could it happen here? What existing data tell us about contemporary antisemitism in the UK” with JPR’s senior researcher Dr. Daniel Staetsky. While calling for more research into the levels of anti-Semitism, its causes and effects, the respected demographers have made clear that the situation in the UK is not as bad as some of the reports earlier this year suggested.

 

Antagonism against Jews, they concluded, is comparatively low and stable despite 2014 being recorded as seeing the highest levels yet. Acknowledging the “spike in anti-Semitic incidents during the Gaza war in summer 2014, and the Islamist attacks on Jews in Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen,” the writers said that existing data presented a “complex and multifaceted picture of reality.”

 

Read More: UK Jewry experts cast doubt on rise in anti-Semitism – Diaspora – Jerusalem Post