UK antisemitic incidents stay near record high, watchdog says

British Jewry’s watchdog on antisemitism on Tuesday said it had recorded 1,926 incidents of Jew-hatred in the country during the first half of 2026, the second-highest tally ever recorded within a six-month period.

The highest incident count within that period was recorded in the first half of 2024 with 2,109 cases, according to the report published on Wednesday by the Community Security Trust (CST), it said in its biannual report on Wednesday.

In the first half of 2025, CST recorded 1,598 incidents. The data reflected the surge in antisemitic incidents in the United Kingdom after Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas’s deadly invasion into Israel triggered a regional war. In the first half of 2023, CST had recorded 965 cases.

The figures constitute “further confirmation that antisemitic incident levels following 7 October 2023 have stabilized over the longer term at a far higher rate than reported prior to Hamas’ terror attack on Israel,” said CST.

Of the 1,926 incidents during the first half of 2026, 787, or 41%, “referred to Israel, Palestine, the Hamas terror attack or subsequent war, alongside anti-Jewish language,” according to CST.

Physical attacks on Jews comprised 7% of the January-to-June total, or 136 cases, compared to 4% in the first half of 2025. Most of the violent incidents recorded this year occurred between June 30 and the arson attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue on April 15.

Other major antisemitic incidents included the torching of four ambulances in Golders Green that belonged to the Hatzolah Jewish rescue group in March, allegedly as part of an operation led by an Iranian agent who is now under arrest in the United States awaiting trial.

The prevalence of recorded campus-related antisemitic incidents dropped in the first half of 2026, according to the report, to 28. The corresponding period in 2025 had 36 cases.

Separately, the University of Bristol lost its legal appeal on Tuesday against a court ruling that found it had discriminated against an academic, David Miller, by firing him over his anti-Zionist views and criticism of Israel.

A university spokesperson said they were “disappointed” with the findings of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, the BBC reported.

Miller had called some Jewish student groups “political lobby groups” and described Jewish students at British universities as “political pawns by a violent, racist foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.” The university fired Miller in 2021, but a court ruled in 2024 he had been wrongfully dismissed. The university appealed but its appeal was rejected on Tuesday.

The court ruled that Miller would need to take a 50% reduction in compensation fees owed to him because of “contributory fault,” meaning he was partly to blame for his dismissal. The court did not name the sum owed to Miller, which according to the BBC is yet to be determined. The court did not order Miller be rehired.

The court “saw no good reason why the beliefs relied upon by the claimant in this case should be excluded from protection simply because they related to an issue of social importance which might, broadly, also be categorised as ‘political’. We therefore reject the suggestion that the Tribunal erred,” the court said.

The Union of Jewish Students (UJS) said in response to the ruling: “We must not allow activists to weaponise this judgment; to use it to validate antisemitic, hateful abuse and harassment.” Academic freedom, UJS wrote, “cannot serve as a shield against institutional responsibility, nor can it be invoked to silence Jewish students; to suppress them with hostility and intimidation.”

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