Jews make up less than 1 per cent of UK population but a quarter of all hate crimes

This year saw the most overall religious hate crimes committed since records began in 2012

Official hate crime statistics published Thursday by the Home Office show that despite making up a tiny fraction of the UK population, Jews were the victims of nearly a quarter of all hate crimes.

The report also showed that between March 2021 and March 2022, there were 1,919 hate crimes targeting Jews, an increase of 49 per cent from the previous year.

Antisemitic hate crimes accounted for 23 per cent of all religious hate crimes in the UK, despite being less than 1 per cent of the total religious population.

The 1,919 figure is almost triple that of the 672 antisemitic hate crimes recorded in 2017/2018.

It is believed, as has previously been the case with other periods of Israeli conflict, that this dramatic increase was due to the flaring of hostilities between Israel and Gaza in May of 2021.

Outside of antisemitic incidents, overall religious hate crimes increased by 37 per cent (to 8,730 offences) from the previous year (6,383 offences) and this year also saw the largest number of religious hate crimes since recording began in 2012.

Jews were the second most commonly targeted religious group behind Muslims with Buddhists being the victims of the fewest number of hate crimes last year.