A pair of polls show a surge in anti-Semitic feelings in Great Britain, as well as growing unease among the Jews living there, the German news site, Deutsche Welle reported Thursday.
In the first, conducted by the pollster YouGov for the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA), a lobby group, 45 percent of all respondents agreed with at least one anti-Semitic view that was presented to them. One in four said that Jews “chase money” more than others, while one in six agreed that “Jews think they are better than other people” and that Jews “have too much power in the media.”
The second survey, also released by the CAA looked at Jewish attitudes. The survey was carried out on social media, and found that more than half of respondents feared that Jews have no future in the UK.
Jonathan Sacerdoti, a spokesman for the CAA, explained, “We carried out these surveys because of anecdotal evidence that people were concerned. Whilst Jews in Britain are safer than in parts of Europe, they are aware of incidents happening in France, Belgium, and elsewhere, and of similar plots here.”
The Deutsche Welle report also notes that concern in the rise of anti-Semitism in Britain predates last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris in which four Jews were killed. The Community and Services Trust (CST), which tracks hate crimes against Jews, noted that in the first six months of 2014 there was a 36% rise in hate crimes, and counted over 100 individual hate crimes targeting Jews after the beginning of Operation Protective Edge in July of last year.
While half of British Jewry believe that “Jews have no future in the UK,” a survey of French Jews early last year had an even more dismaying result, showing that two-thirds of them were considering leaving France.
Last month, BBC director Danny Cohen said in an interview that he “never felt so uncomfortable being a Jew in the UK.”
In The Global Pogrom, which was published in the August 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, associate editor Benjamin Kerstein wrote:
In London, home to a large Muslim minority, a series of protests were, at least, fairly peaceful, but the rhetoric remained one of unrelenting incitement and defamation. One popular talking point is that Israel is guilty of genocide. Another is “Hitler, you were right.” Such rhetoric is clearly intended to cause maximum pain and offense to Jews. A protest that uses such rhetoric is not a protest. It is an attack. At least one observer found the sight repulsive enough to write, “Thousands of anti-Semites have today succeeded in bringing central London to an almost total standstill.”
This seems to be an understatement. The British Jewish community is now under siege as well. Death and bomb threats are flowing in by the dozen. Hate crimes are skyrocketing. A Jewish boy was the target of stone thrown by a Muslim woman. A rabbi was the target of a gang attack. Chants of “Heil Hitler” are defiling Jewish neighborhoods.
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