Hate crimes targeting Jewish people have more than doubled in England and Wales, official figures show.
The Home Office released its data for Hate Crime for 2018/2019 and revealed that hate crimes against Jewish people more than doubled, with 1,326 religious hate crime offences targeting Jewish people, compared with 672 in the previous year.
Anti-Semitism makes up 18% of all religious hate crimes. Just under half (47%) of religious hate crime offences were targeted against Muslim people (3,530 offences), a similar proportion to last year, with an increase of Islamophobic hate crimes of around 19% since last year’s statistics.
It is important to note that based on population sizes, a Jewish person is twice as likely to be a victim of a religious hate crime than all other religious groups, including Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. The least likely religious group to be targeted in Britain are Christians.
Clearly, it is not a competition. Hate crime against any group or individual should not be accepted in our society. Each victim is just as important as the other and more must be done to tackle this hatred wherever it rears its ugly head. However, it is important for us to understand the rising tide of anti-Semitism in our nation and the very real feeling of uncertainty amongst the Jewish community in the UK.
In total, police in England and Wales recorded 103,379 hate crimes overall in 2018/2019. This is 10 percent higher than the previous year, and the number has more than doubled since the 2012/13 figure.
Over half of hate crimes were public order offences, while a third (36 percent) involved violence and another 5 percent were criminal damage or arson.
The figures also found a large increase in offences against people based on sexual orientation (25 percent) and transgender identity (37 percent). Disability hate crimes increased by 14 percent to 8,256, the data showed.
A government spokesperson said:
“Any incident of hate crime is completely unacceptable. No one should be targeted because a hateful minority cannot tolerate the differences that make our country great.
We are encouraged that more people are willing to report hate crime and that police continue to improve their response to victims.
Partners across the criminal justice system, government and in the community are working hard to empower those affected and ensure perpetrators are punished.”
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