ANTI-SEMITIC graffiti has been daubed on a bus stop in Golders Green in the same week that figures show racist crime against the Jewish community has hit record levels

Katie Davies

ANTI-SEMITIC graffiti has been daubed on a bus stop in Golders Green in the same week that figures show racist crime against the Jewish community has hit record levels.

The Community Security Trust (CST), the body that investigates anti-Semitic attacks, revealed there were 594 hate incidents in the UK last year.

The figure represents a 31 per cent rise on 2005 and the highest level since records began in 1984.

And Jewish representatives say the figures come as no surprise as there are regular incidents in Camden and Barnet.

Golders Green councillor Melvin Cohen said: "Over the last two or three weeks a series of anti-Semitic muggings have been reported in the Temple Fortune area.

"Councillors are meeting with police and I am going to meet the borough commander (Stephen Kavanagh) about it.

"The problem doesn't seem to be getting any better. I think the people responsible are indigenous to the area and it seems to be more highly focused in the last few months."

This week anti-Semitic graffiti was found on a bus stop at the junction of Woodstock Avenue and Golders Green Road. .

In August the Ham&High reported that Swastikas and the words 'kill all Jews' were daubed on Dr Justin Stebbing's Hampstead Garden Suburb home.

Later that month Linda Cohen who runs La Maison Du Café on Golders Green Road was attacked by two men who called her a dirty jew and threatened her with a knife.

Rabbi Reuven Livingstone, of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue, said anti-Semitic abuse was common but serious violent crime was less of an issue.

He said: "The situation in this area has been pretty stable. But we have incidents - orthodox Jews walking along the A1 will have cars pull over and have racist abuse shouted at them.

"That has happened to me from time to time. In some places my friends say they won't wear a skullcap but will put a baseball cap on instead

"I think at a local level we have got to improve relations between groups. A certain amount of anti-Semitism comes from ignorance and I feel strongly about building bridges to Muslims and Christians."

The CST found violent assaults had risen by 37 per cent since 2005, abusive behaviour by 34 per cent and damage and desecration of Jewish communal property by 46 per cent.

CST spokesman Mark Gardner said: "Today's anti-Semitism is a wave of hatred, intimidation and abuse against British Jews, who are randomly attacked over international tensions for which they bear no responsibility."

katie.davies@hamhigh.co.uk