A new study from the UK Jewish community’s main security organization found an overall decrease in antisemitic incidents in the first six months of this year but cautioned that in-person incidents soared during the same time period.
According to the Community Security Trust (CST), there was a 43 percent decrease in incidents between January and June 2022. But a larger number of the attacks occurred in real life instead of online, CST explained.
CST data found 786 incidents, including verbal and physical assaults, antisemitic graffiti, and vandalism.
The figure is a 43 percent decrease from the first six months of 2021, during which the conflict between Israel and Hamas saw antisemitic incidents reach historic levels, the UK Jewish News reported.
Incidents of antisemitism in 2022 pointed to a sharp uptick in physical incidents after two years of the pandemic in which incidents largely migrated online, the organization said.
Four out of every five cases documented by the CST occurred in-person while at the same time online incidents decreased by 61 percent over 2021.
The number of cases in schools also significantly fell but over a fifth of incidents were committed by children or teenagers, according to the study’s findings.
“Strikingly, perpetrators described as minors were more likely to express politicized, conspiracist or extremist discourses during the course of an incident,” CST said in the report.
“The most common type of discourse expressed by minors involved references to Nazism, the Holocaust or other language and imagery inspired by far right extremism.”
Almost a third of reported incidents referenced Hitler, the Nazis or the Holocaust, CST reported.