North East Jewish community say there needs to be more education around religion
A Newcastle Jewish representative believes we need more education and interfaith work around religion to help combat antisemitism.
Dozens of antisemitic incidents were reported in the aftermath of the deadly Manchester synagogue attack, some celebrating what had happened, according to a report.
The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors antisemitism in the UK, said 40 were recorded on the day and a further 40 the day after - the highest daily totals of the year.
Worshippers Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed when 35-year-old Jihad Al-Shamie, a Syrian-born British citizen, drove into the gates of the Heaton Park Synagogue in Crumpsall, Manchester, in October last year, and then began attacking with a knife, wearing a fake suicide belt.
It was the first fatal antisemitic terror attack in the UK since the CST began recording incidents in 1984.
Leslie Boobis, Joint President of the Board of Deputies for North East Jewry and the Deputy for the Board of Deputies for the UHC Newcastle, says they have not experienced a rise across the North East but cannot remain complacent.
He said: "For some reason, when there's violence against Jews anywhere in the world, it seems to cause a spike in antisemitic activity distant from where the attack took place and in other countries.
"We're a small community and we have good relations with our various other groups and there doesn't seem to be any great antisemitic hostility within the North East and certainly not within Newcastle.
"I’ve got a few friends in Gateshead and they haven't seen any change in the way people will dress or display the fact that they belong to a Jewish community.
"We continue to have security on the doors to the synagogue on Sabbath. We have to keep everything locked. So where previously there used to be an open gate policy, we can't allow that anymore. There are secure gates on both the outside and the inside so people can't get in.
"If young people are not made aware of the horrors that happened during the Second World War, and it's confined to history, and they think it's no longer relevant, and that thing can't happen again, and because of that, people are not attuned to picking up the signals."