What's driving an increase in antisemitism in the United Kingdom?

0:00It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, anti-Semitic attacks are on the rise in the United Kingdom. So much so that last week, the government there raised the national terrorism threat level from substantial to severe. The move followed a stabbing attack on two Jewish men in Golders Green, a part of London with a large Jewish community. Well, I felt sick about it because I thought to myself, as a country, I'd hope we put anti-Semitism behind us. And, you know, there was quite a bit of it around in the 1930s, even in countries not occupied by the Nazis at the time.

0:39And I thought to myself, we can't have this again. Ninety-three-year-old Alfred Dubbs is a Labour Party member of the House of Lords. This is not his first experience with anti-Semitism. Dub's father was Jewish, and the family lived in Prague in the 1930s during the rise of Nazism. When the Nazis said they were going to occupy Prague, my father said to his cousins, if they come, he's getting out. And the cousins tragically said, they'll take their chance. And in 1942, they were taken to Auschwitz. His father fled to England first. Dub's followed when he was six years old. So she put me on a kindertransport.

1:16His mother wasn't allowed to leave. Fortunately for her, when they refused her permission and threw her down the stairs at some Gestapo place, they threw her passport after her. And with that, she had one further chance of escape. So I was on the Kindertransport and my mother managed to get to London on the last train before the war. The Golders Green attack is one of many over the last several months that has targeted the UK's Jewish citizens. There was an arson attempt in London last month, an attack on the Jewish ambulance service, an attempted firebombing at a London synagogue, and last October a man killed two people in what police called a terrorist attack on a Manchester synagogue during Yom Kippur.

2:01I think we have a situation where there's a danger that for some people it's become a bit of a norm. And that is an absolute tragedy. We've got to tackle it here and get rid of it. It's a scourge. Dub's worries, the rise in violence targeting Jewish people is due to Israel's war in Gaza. I fear that there are people who are linking the events. I think there is an element where people are blaming Jews in Britain for things that Israel is doing in the region. I think that's quite wrong. It is possible to be very critical of the Israeli government, as I am, and at the same time be totally opposed to anti-Semitism.

2:43Consider this, the number of anti-Semitic incidences on the rise in the UK. What's driving it? And how is the British government trying to combat it? From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.

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3:32It's Consider This from NPR. The United Kingdom faces an anti-Semitism emergency. That's according to the government there. This week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there is a plan to fight it. We're fast-tracking legislation to tackle these malign threats. And we're clear-eyed about the fact that anti-Semitism does not have one source alone. Islamist, far-left, far-right extremism all target Jewish communities. To get a better understanding of what is happening here, we have called Brendan McGeever. He is co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in London. Mr. McGeever, welcome.

4:16And what went through your mind when you heard about the attack just last week in Golders Green there in London? The first thing that went through my mind after that attack was shock but not surprise. The awful stabbing of two Jewish men is one incident in a series of attacks on Jewish people and property that have taken place in England over recent days and weeks. Indeed, the government's advisor on terrorism, Jonathan Hall, called this the biggest single national security emergency that Britain has faced in nearly a decade. When we lay out these recent instances of anti-Semitic attacks, is there data that confirms how isolated or widespread it is?

5:02Looking at the data that is available, is society en masse turning against British Jews? No, I don't think that it is. There's some data that suggests that there is a rise in the more everyday type of anti-Semitism, so abuse, name-calling, particularly online slurs. But alongside that picture, we have a different picture. For example, if we look at anti-Semitic attitudes in Britain, that data suggests that anti-Semitism is in fact flatlining or possibly even declining and has been for over a decade. Do you have a theory for why those two lines seem to be headed in different directions? Well, at the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, we've put forward the concept of the reservoir.

5:49That reservoir of antisemitism consists of a series of tropes and narratives about Jews from which people can draw from with ease to explain the political events in which Jews have become a figure or a symbol. We know for certain that whenever there's an escalation of violence in Israel-Palestine, we see a rise in recorded and reported incidences of anti-Semitism in Britain. So evidently there is a correlation. The precise nature of that relationship is not yet entirely clear. There is widespread agreement that holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is anti-Semitic.

6:30But that conflation is made routinely in politics. It's made when the government speaks as if pro-Palestine protests makes Jews feel unsafe, when in fact Jews are divided on that issue. So the government, when it intervenes on anti-Semitism, is wrong to assume that Jews are of one voice. So I hear you being critical of some political leaders and their messaging on this. What about their actions? Prime Minister Keir Starmer is putting more money towards combating anti-Semitism, £25 million last week, toward protection and security, some more money this week toward tackling anti-Semitism in schools, supporting Jewish communities and so on.

7:11Is the government doing enough on that front? It is good that the government has that energy and resources to address the issue. Whether these are the right responses is a different question. securitisation that is making Jewish buildings and Jewish people more secure is important but on its own will not address societal anti-Semitism. To that we need to have a programme of education and it is good that the government has announced measures that are more focused on education rather than simply securitisation. However once we get into the detail of those programmes of education, those programs of education are tightly wedded to the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which is a contentious and contested definition.

7:59I think it's safe to assume that the effectiveness of that education is going to be limited. I'm speaking to you from Washington. Here in the United States, we're also tracking a rise in anti-Semitic incidents and attacks. Do you see parallels or do you see something unique, different happening there in Britain? The challenges and complexities that we face here in Britain are reproduced in other parts of the world, where there are multiple forms of racism that are not being addressed evenly and with consistency by governments. And certainly in the United States, we can see how antisemitism has been broken off from a wider anti-racist politics and addressed in some ways even to attack anti-racist politics.

8:45We desperately need a way of addressing antisemitism that is consistently anti-racist. And that's the case in Britain. And with the different dynamics in play, it's also the case in the United States. We've been speaking with antisemitism scholar Brendan McKeever from London. Thank you very much. Very good to talk to you. This episode was produced by Mia Venkat. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Wadanan and Courtney Dornan. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:20It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.