Executive Summary

• CST recorded 1,926 antisemitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2026, the second-highest total ever reported to CST in the first six months of any year, exceeded only by the 2,019 incidents recorded from January to June 2024. This is an increase of 21% from the 1,598 incidents recorded in the first half of 2025. CST recorded 965 incidents in the first six months of 2023, and 823 incidents from January to June 2022.¹
• The increase from the half-year total recorded in 2025 – at the time the second-highest January-to-June figure ever reported – is further confirmation that antisemitic incident levels following 7 October 2023 have stabilised over the longer term at a far higher rate than reported prior to Hamas’ terror attack on Israel. The 1,926 antisemitic incidents recorded in the first six months of 2026 is more than the total for the entire year of 2022 – the last full year before the 7 October attack.
• In the six months leading up to 7 October 2023, CST recorded a monthly average of 161 antisemitic incidents per month. In the first six months of 2026, this monthly average was 321 incidents, a 99% increase from that earlier period. Prior to October 2023, CST had only ever recorded monthly incident totals exceeding 200 on five occasions, and over 300 twice, each correlating with past periods when Israel was at war. In the first half of 2026, CST logged over 200 instances of anti-Jewish hate in every month, and over 300 in March, April, May and June.
• The sustained level of antisemitic incidents reported to CST in the first half of 2026 – and the rise in monthly totals from March onwards – occurred in the context of war between Israel, the United States and Iran, which began on 28 February.² There was a sudden rise in reports of anti-Jewish hate, with 89 antisemitic incidents reported to CST in the week following the airstrikes, a 71% increase from the 52 incidents logged during the week preceding them. Taking a longer-term view, CST logged 527 cases of antisemitic hate in the 57 days between 1 January and 27 February inclusive, and 656 incidents in the 57 days following (including 28 February): an increase of 24%. The charging on 18 March of two men for allegedly conducting hostile reconnaissance on Jewish community locations in London for Iranian intelligence further demonstrated the potential global ramifications of war in the Middle East, increasing Jewish communal fear in the UK.³
• Antisemitic activity that appeared to be instigated by Iran extended to physical attacks on the Jewish community in the UK. On 13 July 2026, the UK Government designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia (HAYI) under the National Security Act 2023.⁴ HAYI had publicly claimed responsibility for seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities, and Persian-language media.⁵ These included at least four acts of arson or attempted arson of synagogues and Jewish communal organisations in London that are counted within this report’s statistics.
• The first of these arson attacks took place on 23 March 2026 when four ambulances belonging to Hatzola – a Jewish charity that provides an ambulance service for the Jewish and wider community – were set ablaze.⁶ On the same day, CST recorded what was at the time the joint highest daily total for antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2026, with 25 reports of anti-Jewish hate.⁷ Eleven of these 25 incidents were online antisemitic reactions to the attack with a diverse range of anti-Jewish narratives.

• The second attempted arson for which HAYI claimed responsibility was carried out on 15 April 2026, when Finchley Reform Synagogue was targeted.⁸ On 17 April HAYI claimed responsibility for an unsuccessful arson attempt against the former offices of a Jewish charity in Hendon, and on 19 April they claimed a petrol bombing at Kenton United Synagogue.^9,10 On 29 April, Essa Suleiman allegedly travelled to Golders Green in north London and stabbed two visibly Jewish men. This was formally declared a terrorist incident by police.¹¹ On 5 May, the site of a disused synagogue in east London was subject to another arson.¹² In the three-week period after the arson on Finchley Reform Synagogue, CST recorded 327 antisemitic incidents, an 83% rise from 179 reports of anti-Jewish hate in the three weeks preceding the attack. The quick succession of notable, potentially lethal antisemitic incidents is likely to have contributed to this further temporary increase in anti-Jewish hate. As observed in previous years, high-profile assaults on Jewish life can inspire more antisemitic acts from those who are subsequently emboldened to share their prejudice.
• CST recorded 21 antisemitic incidents on the day of the Golders Green stabbing attack,¹³ the joint-fourth highest daily total in the first half of the year; 24 antisemitic incidents on the day after the attack, the joint-third highest daily total between January and June; and 26 antisemitic incidents on the day following that, the highest daily total of the period. Of the 71 cases of anti-Jewish hate recorded across these three days, 16 (23%) were explicitly linked to the stabbing. Four involved face-to-face abuse directed at Jewish people in public – including at those who gathered in Golders Green in solidarity with the Jewish community in the hours following the attack – and 12 took place on social media or via email.
• The Golders Green knife attack was the sole incident severe enough to be categorised as Extreme Violence in the first half of 2026, meaning it involved a threat to life of Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH). This is a fall from the three such incidents reported between January and June 2025.
• CST recorded 135 incidents as Assault in the first six months of 2026, an increase of 82% from 74 incidents of this type reported in the first half of 2025 and the highest ever six-monthly total in this category. Taken together with the single case of Extreme Violence, physical attacks on Jewish people constitute 7% of the six-monthly total, compared to 4% in the corresponding period in 2025. It is notable that of these 136 acts of physical violence, 93 (69%) occurred over the 77 days between the arson attack on Finchley Reform Synagogue on 15 April and 30 June: 43% of the period covered in this report. This may indicate that not only did the overall volume of antisemitism increase following this incident, but the general severity of the antisemitism did too.
• Cases of Damage & Desecration to Jewish property fell by 18%, from 94 in the first half of 2025 to 77 between January and June 2026. These 77 incidents include the five arson attacks claimed by, or potentially linked to, HAYI. Twenty-six of these involved damage done to the homes and vehicles of Jewish people, 19 to synagogues, ten to Jewish schools, seven to Jewish businesses and organisations, three to supermarket aisles displaying kosher food, two to an Eruv, and one to a Jewish cemetery.
• There were 126 incidents reported to CST in the category of Threats in the first six months of 2026, which includes direct threats and explicit incitement of violence to people, institutions or property. This is a rise of 27% from the 99 incidents of this kind reported from January to June 2025, making it the second-highest half-year total ever recorded in this category.
• CST recorded 1,572 cases of Abusive Behaviour in the first half of 2026, the second-highest January-to-June total in this category and an increase of 20% from the 1,307 instances reported over the same period in 2025. This figure alone eclipses the incident total recorded across all categories between January and June of all preceding years bar 2025, 2024 and 2021. These 1,572 incidents form 82% of the half-year total.
• There were 15 incidents reported to CST in the category of mass-produced antisemitic Literature during the first six months of 2026, falling by 29% from 21 such incidents recorded across the same timeframe in 2025.
• The impact of war in the Middle East is evident in 787 antisemitic incidents – 41% of the six-monthly total – that referenced or were linked to Israel, Palestine, the Hamas terror attack or the subsequent outbreak of conflict. Although a smaller percentage than those logged in the first half of 2025 (51%) and 2024 (52%), the proportion is still significantly higher than typically reported in periods unaffected by trigger events in the region – for comparison, between January and June 2023, just 16% of antisemitic incidents included Israel-related language or imagery. There were 676 antisemitic incidents that showed explicitly anti-Zionist motivation alongside anti-Jewish language or targeting in the first half of 2026, comprising 35% of the January-to-June total.
• Variations on the terms “Zionism” or “Zionist” were employed on 204 occasions, often as by-words for “Jewishness” and “Jew”. This was the case in 216 incidents in the first six months of 2025, and just 47 incidents in the first half of 2023. Meanwhile, there were 105 instances wherein Israel, Israelis or Jewish people were compared to Nazi Germany or the Nazis, down from 187 incidents between January and June 2025, but significantly more than the 28 such incidents recorded across the same period in 2023.

• Of the 1,926 instances of antisemitism reported to CST in the first half of 2026, 420 (22%) referenced Hitler, the Nazis, the Holocaust, and/or punctuated their abuse with a Nazi salute, the depiction of a swastika, or other related imagery – a decrease of 18% from the 511 incidents using this rhetoric in the first half of 2025. Perpetrators are more likely to glorify and celebrate the Holocaust than to deny it occurred: 39 cases involved denial, up from 27 in the corresponding period in 2025, while 85 reports involved celebration or glorification of the Holocaust, down from 112 in the same period in 2025.
• Forty-eight antisemitic incidents were reported to CST between January and June 2026 that referenced convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, twenty-eight of which occurred in February, following the United States Department of Justice’s publication of documents related to his conviction. Thirty-eight alleged that Epstein’s crimes are proof of a global, powerful, amoral Jewish elite acting to the detriment of everyone else; 19 claimed his crimes were Jewish ritualistic child abuse; 34 viewed Epstein’s evil as an extension of Israel’s alleged evil, or vice versa.
• CST recorded 680 cases of online antisemitism in the first half of 2026, 35% of the total – the highest ever January-to-June total for online reports. Of these, 588 (86%) presented evidence of political or ideological discourse, motivations, anti-Jewish tropes or conspiracy theories, compared to 55% of offline incidents. Four hundred and sixteen (61%) of online incidents referenced events in the Middle East, compared to just 371 (30%) of offline incidents.
• In the first six months of 2026, 51 antisemitic incidents were reported at Jewish schools, a further 53 involved Jewish schoolchildren away from school, and 74 involved schoolchildren or staff at non-faith schools – a total of 178 cases affecting the school sector, a 59% increase from the 112 reported in the first half of 2025 and the highest total ever recorded for this period. Twenty-one (12%) of these 178 incidents fell into the category of Assault, compared to 7% of incidents outside the school sector.
• Twenty-eight antisemitic incidents were reported in the first six months of 2026 in which the victims or offenders were students or academics, or which involved student unions, societies or representative bodies – a drop of 22% from the 36 higher education incidents recorded in the first half of 2025.
• There were 96 antisemitic incidents during the first six months of 2026 that targeted synagogues, and a further 21 involving congregants travelling to or from prayers – a net rise of 31%, from 89 to 117 reports, the most ever recorded in the first half of a year.

Regional Breakdown

• Nine hundred and ninety-four antisemitic incidents were reported across Greater London in the first six months of 2026, rising by 24% from 800 over the same timeframe in 2025. CST recorded 222 antisemitic incidents in Greater Manchester, an increase of 14% from 194 in the corresponding period last year. Together, these figures comprise 63% of the UK’s six-monthly total. Of the 994 incidents in Greater London, 469 took place in Barnet, the local authority with the largest Jewish population in the UK; 75 in Westminster, 73 in Camden, 55 in Hackney and 25 in Haringey.
• Of Greater Manchester’s 222 antisemitic incidents, 65 occurred in the City of Manchester, 54 in Salford, 49 in Bury, 13 in Stockport and eight in Trafford.
• The only mainland police regions where CST did not record a single incident in the first half of 2026 were Dyfed Powys, Gwent and Northampton. Apart from Greater London and Greater Manchester, the police regions with the highest half-year figures were Scotland (76 incidents), Hertfordshire (73), West Yorkshire (64), Essex (58) and Northumbria (39).¹⁴
• The perceived ethnicity of 818 offenders was reported among the 1,926 incidents recorded. Of these, 434 (53%) were described as white – North European; 27 (3%) as white – South European; 84 (10%) as black; 78 (10%) as South Asian; two (<1%) as Southeast Asian; and 193 (24%) as Arab or North African.¹⁵
• In addition to the 1,926 antisemitic incidents recorded, a further 2,264 potential incidents were reported to CST that, upon investigation, did not evidence antisemitic language, motivation or targeting – the highest number of non-antisemitic incidents CST has ever recorded in the first half of a year, and the first time such reports have outnumbered confirmed antisemitic incidents in a January-to-June period.