The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the UK has risen to its highest ever.

According to the Community Security Trust (CST), 594 incidents were reported in 2006 – a rise of 31% in the previous year and the most since records begin in 1984.

The incidents range from 112 violent assaults, up from 82 in 2005 to 70 attacks on Jewish communal property, up from 48 in 2005.

While incidents were spread out across the country, nearly 50% of assault and violence took place in Manchester, a city that only accounts for around 10% of all British Jews.

Among the incidents were 47 gravestones damaged in two incidents at a Jewish cemetery in Manchester, Swastikas scratched into a Holocaust memorial in Nottingham and leaflets saying “No Jews”.

“Anti-Semitic hate crime levels have more than doubled in the last ten years. This is unacceptable racism, that many Jews had hoped and believed was a thing of the past,” said CST spokesman Mark Gardner. “Today’s anti-Semitism is a wave of hatred, intimidation and abuse against British Jews, who are stupidly blamed and randomly attacked over international tensions for which they bear no responsibility. We call upon the Police, Government, political parties and democrats everywhere to act loudly and clearly against this hateful trend.”