(JTA) — Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain fell 18 percent over the previous year, according to an annual survey.
The Community Security Trust, which advises Britain’s Jewish community on security issues, recorded 529 anti-Semitic incidents across the country during 2013, compared to 649 incidents in 2012. An additional 465 reports were received by CST but were not deemed to be anti-Semitic and are not included in the total.
“Any fall in the number of ant-Semitic incidents that takes place is to be welcomed, but we are always wary of reading too much into short-term trends as we know that the picture can change considerably from year to year,” CST spokesman Mark Gardner said in a statement released Thursday.
Members of the Jewish community, Jewish organizations and other victims of or witnesses reported the incidents.
The incidents included 69 violent assaults, the same number as recorded from 2012. Eighty-six incidents involved the use of social media to transmit anti-Semitic threats or abuse, compared to 81 such incidents the previous year.
The most common type of incident in 2013 involved verbal abuse randomly directed at visibly Jewish people in public, with 185 incidents. In 89 of these incidents, the victims were visibly Jewish, usually due to religious or traditional clothing, school uniform or jewelry bearing Jewish symbols, according to CST.
CST has recorded anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom since 1984. The most was 931 in 2009.
