VOICE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY 2 November 2023 • 18 Cheshvan 5784 • Issue No.1339 •
@JewishNewsUK
Fifteeen countries take part in Jewish News’ Balloons of Hope Page 43
Photo by Blake Ezra
a Un re i st ted ro w n e ge r
would Set them free What Sacks think?
Pride in the face of prejudice
Light from late rabbi’s words P30
Magen David sales are soaring, with shops struggling to meet the demand. Shul attendances are also up. We might be grappling with despair, but we are also embracing a deep sense of communal identity. Now is the time for us to stand unapologetically tall as British Jews
See page 8
1,000 new volunteers for CST since 7 October
Community members answer the call to keep us safe
A CST volunteer on duty
A surge of communal solidarity following the 7 October atrocities has inspired 1,000 new recruits and returning volunteers to step up to support the Community Security Trust (CST), writes Jenni Frazer. The security organisation’s head of policy, Dave Rich, told Jewish News. “This is a fantastic response. At the moment we have 2,500 trained volunteers nationwide, so this is going to make a massive difference to our work. It says a lot for our community that this was one of the first things
that people did after October 7.” Rich said that everyone was being interviewed and vetted, but that some people were already on training courses, run by CST. He expected that it would take a few weeks before every one of the new volunteers was processed and trained. The CST’s latest figures show that between the 7 October terrorist attacks and 31 October, there were at least 893 antisemitic incidents across the UK — the highest figure reported across a 25-day period.
In just over three weeks, CST has recorded more antisemitic incidents than the 803 reported in the first six months in this year. Tell Mama, meanwhile, the community organisation monitoring Islamophobia that the CST helped to set up, has documented 400 antiMuslim cases in the past three weeks. Rich said the CST and Tell Mama representatives frequently took part in the same meetings with police. “But aside from that, there are personal contacts. We are friends.”
Campaign Against Antisemitism has also seen a big rise in volunteers. A spokesperson said: “We have already hosted two fast-track recruitment events and plan to host further events to accommodate for the vast number of sign-ups. “People are feeling a sense of helplessness and one of our priorities as a charity and grassroots organisation has always been to train and empower our volunteers to help the Jewish community however they can.” • PM pledge: ‘I’ll keep you safe’, p20