1 in 3 British Jews have considered leaving UK over anti-Semitism

Jews are increasingly feeling threatened by anti-Semitism and are seeking routes of escape, a new survey shows.

A third of  British Jews has become so fearful of mounting anti-Semitic crime and the failure to excise anti-Semites from politics that they have considered leaving Britain altogether in the past two years, according to data published by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) on Sunday.

A survey of 2,025 British Jews shows that only 59 percent of British Jews feel welcome in the UK, and 17 percent feel unwelcome. For the past two years, 37 percent of British Jews have concealed their Judaism in public.

While fears among British Jews worsen, CAA data shows that Britons increasingly reject anti-Semitic prejudice.

According to CAA-commissioned poll by Internet-based market research firm YouGov, anti-Semitism, as measured by how many respondents agreed with seven anti-Semitic statements, has been in decline for the past three years. In 2015, 45 percent of British people held at least one anti-Semitic view, but that fell to 39 percent in 2016 and then dropped again to 36 percent in 2017.

The report provided no explanations for the decline.

Last month, CAA published police figures that show there has been a 45 percent surge in anti-Semitic crime since 2014.

Additionally CAA revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has yet to prosecute more than two dozen anti-Semitic crimes per year.

52 percent of British Jews said that the CPS is not doing enough to fight anti-Semitism, and only 39 percent of British Jews felt confident that anti-Semitic hate crime would be prosecuted.

Similarly, 76 percent of British Jews feel that recent political events have resulted in increased hostility towards Jews, and for two years running, more than four in five British Jews have considered the Labour Party to be harboring anti-Semites in its ranks.

“The failure of the criminal justice system and political parties to tackle anti-Semitism is in stark contrast with the attitudes of the British public towards Jews,” the CAA stated.

“Our recommendations for political parties are to adopt the Government’s definition of antisemitism, as many have, and to enforce it using transparent and robust disciplinary processes, with expulsion from the party in the worst cases,” the CAA added.

By: World Israel News Staff

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