The U.K.’s Antisemitism Problem

The stabbing of two men in a Jewish neighborhood in London appears to be the latest in a series of antisemitic attacks in the United Kingdom since the beginning of the American-Israeli war against Iran, in late February. The attacks, which also include the torching of ambulances belonging to a Jewish aid group, have caused alarm among many British Jews, and have led the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to call antisemitism in the U.K. a “crisis.” And it’s not just this year—an estimate puts the number of antisemitic incidents in the U.K. in 2src25 above any other year in recent decades, except for 2src23, when they spiked after the October 7th attacks and the start of the Israeli bombings of Gaza. Police are investigating whether an extremist group, the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, which has claimed responsibility for several of the attacks, is formally linked to the Iranian government. The issue of antisemitism is also roiling the Green Party, which has passed Labour in the polls, but is now facing numerous scandals involving its candidates posting antisemitic content. Several of the candidates have been arrested for the posts. (The government has additionally banned the group Palestine Action, which supports attacks on the U.K. arms industry, under a terrorism statute, and arrested people for protesting in support of the group.)

I recently spoke by phone with David Feldman, the co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, at Birkbeck College, University of London, and a professor of the history of antisemitism at the University of Melbourne. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the different types of antisemitism in the United Kingdom, how left-wing organizations need to police antisemitism in their own ranks, and why the government’s response is unlikely to solve the problem.

How would you characterize what we are seeing in the U.K. right now in terms of antisemitic incidents? And does it feel different from past times, such as right after October 7th, when there was an uptick in antisemitism?

I think that what is clearly new about now is this series of horrific incidents in the last couple of months, which have involved attacks on Jewish people, on synagogues, on Jewish buildings, and on Jewish property. This collection of events in a short period of time is not something that I recall before in the U.K. And that’s in a context in which there have been other terrible events internationally, not least, most obviously, most prominently, and most terribly, the massacre at Bondi Beach. These events reverberate around the world, especially among Jews who see themselves as being part of a transnational community.

The other thing to take into account is the continuing high level of recorded antisemitic incidents of a lesser intensity than the violent ones we have seen recently, and those also engender fear and anxiety among many Jewish people. And then there are also the continuing demonstrations against Israel’s destruction of Gaza, and against the ongoing attacks on and dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank, demonstrations and protests which have a significant Jewish involvement, but which some Jews and, in particular, the leaders of Jewish legacy organizations find objectionable.

Are you trying to say there is a connection or there is not a connection between these protests and what we are seeing now?

There are those three elements that I went through, and they are often given the same label of antisemitic, and that suggests a close organic connection between them. There are these violent attacks on Jewish people, buildings, and property. And then, No. 2, there’s the level of antisemitism within British society as a whole, of which antisemitic recorded incidents are often taken to be a key indicator. And then there are the demonstrations. And while it is the case that there are some objectionable antisemitic slogans in pro-Palestine marches, over all, I would say that we are dealing with three distinct phenomena, which need, from a policy point of view and from a practical point of view, to be dealt with separately. But we also need to reckon with the fact that, in the eyes of many Jewish people, they are seen as being a part of a single phenomenon.

O.K., but aside from the demonstrations, you are trying to draw somewhat of a distinction between these recent incidents and more common antisemitism?

Yes, a distinction between what is often everyday antisemitism and the recent spate of violent attacks. Most of the incidents that are recorded are incidents of abusive behavior. There are assaults recorded in the figures for antisemitic incidents, so it would be a mistake not to acknowledge that, but they’re a tiny minority of the over-all number of incidents. So I was trying to draw a distinction between the recent attacks and the general run of antisemitic incidents, which are recorded by a Jewish charity called the Community Security Trust.

What is the importance of drawing this distinction, though? Obviously, violent attacks are worse than insulting someone, but why are you sure they are different phenomena in terms of what causes them?

Well, we don’t really know for sure what is behind the recent attacks on synagogues and the arson attack on the Jewish ambulances, but there are signs that these are not expressions of what we could call organic antisemitism in Britain, but rather that these were attacks bought by proxies acting for foreign states. And these are not only attacks in the U.K. but also in the Netherlands and in Belgium, and the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right has at least claimed responsibility for them. And it’s these attacks which have played an important role, a significant role, in bringing fears and anxiety to their current pitch. So it’s for that reason that I would, for the moment, until we know more, separate them from the more general and broader question of the state of antisemitism in Britain today.

So then let’s just talk about the antisemitic incidents that you mentioned before and that you say are part and parcel of British society. They go up and down; they went up in 2src25; they went up in 2src23. I read the report that you mentioned by the Community Security Trust. Some of the standards struck me as things I would not define as antisemitic if I were coming up with the definition, but obviously a lot of them were quite clearly antisemitic, and obviously they’re concerning. What do you make of this report, and the seeming uptick in incidents in 2src25?

First of all, I think that the incident figures need to be understood alongside other indicators, so we can build up a holistic picture. The incident figures on their own only tell a part of the story. Above all, we need to consider what we know from surveys about antisemitic attitudes in the United Kingdom. And there, we do not see evidence to suggest that the situation is getting worse, or that British society is turning antisemitic. Most surveys present that something like five or six per cent of people in Britain are thoroughgoing antisemites. Five or six per cent of the adult population is still a pretty big number. It’s something like three million people. So it’s not to be dismissed, but it also seems to be a fairly stable figure. In fact, there are some indicators that suggest that attitudes toward Jews are improving. A survey by YouGov in 2src15 found that twenty-five per cent of those surveyed thought that Jews chased money more than other people, and then, in 2src25, that had fallen to around fifteen per cent. So what these surveys suggest is that while its declining, there’s a much larger portion of the population that are not hard-core antisemites, but would assent to one or two antisemitic stereotypes like “Jews chase money more than other people.”