What's driving an increase in antisemitism in the United Kingdom?
5/7/20269 min
The number of antisemitic incidents is on the rise in the UK. What is driving it, and – how is the British government trying to combat it?
The United Kingdom faces an antisemitism emergency.
That’s according to the government there.
This week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there is a plan to fight it.
Brendan McGeever co-director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in London breaks down what's happening.
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This episode was produced by Mia Venkat.
It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon and Courtney Dorning.
Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMary Louise Kelly· Host0:00
It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. Today, antisemitic 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.
Alfred Dubs· Soundbite0:25
Well, I felt sick about it, uh, because I thought to myself, as a country, I'd hoped we'd put antisemitism behind us, and the, you know, there was quite a bit of it around in the 1930s, even in countries not occupied by the Nazis at the time, and I thought to myself, "We can't have this again."
Mary Louise Kelly· Host0:41
93-year-old Alfred Dubs is a Labor Party member of the House of Lords. This is not his first experience with antisemitism. Dubs' father was Jewish, and the family lived in Prague in the 1930s during the rise of Nazism.
Alfred Dubs· Soundbite0:56
When the Nazis said they were gonna 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.
Mary Louise Kelly· Host1:09
His father fled to England first. Dubs followed when he was six years old.
Alfred Dubs· Soundbite1:14
So she put me on a Kindertransport.
Mary Louise Kelly· Host1:16
His mother wasn't allowed to leave.
Alfred Dubs· Soundbite1:17
Fortunately for her, uh, 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 chan- a further chance of escape.