Those who attack Jews in the UK are not striking a blow for Palestine: they are behaving as antisemites always have | Jonathan Freedland

Tropes in a Labour meeting, antisemitism incidents up 589% - try to imagine what it is like to be Jewish in Britain right now

Jews dread the news. Maybe the entire population feels that way these days: waking to a morning bulletin consisting of wars abroad, recession at home and Donald Trump would make anyone want to turn off the radio and pull the duvet over their head. But for many Jews, the current news comes with a particular sting. They can hardly bear to hear it - not least because they're in it so often.

On Thursday, they woke to new figures showing that late 2023 brought a 589% increase in antisemitic incidents in Britain compared with the same period in 2022. Overall, 2023 saw more than 4,100 episodes of anti-Jewish hate across the country - at least one recorded in every police region in the UK. Most of that huge spike came after 7 October, following the Hamas attacks on southern Israel and Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza. Some of the incidents involved knives, others saw Jews struck with metal bars. Some victims were punched or kicked or spat on, others had stones, bricks or bottles thrown at them. Some had religious clothing - say, the kippah, or skullcap - forcibly removed. Some of the abuse happened online; some of it was physical and personal. Some of it comprised attacks on buildings, slogans daubed on walls, windows smashed; hundreds of incidents involved children, whether making their way to or from school or inside it. The numbers, gathered by the Community Security Trust - the same body that helps organise the volunteer guards who've long been required to stand outside every synagogue and Jewish school in Britain - are the highest since the CST began collecting data four decades ago.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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