More on the Crisis Facing Jews in the UK....

Extra patrols by the police in Jewish neighbourhoods...

Police patrols have been stepped up in Jewish neighbourhoods following the most intense period of antisemitic incidents to have been recorded in Britain in decades.

Safety fears are so acute that reports have emerged of members of Britain's Jewish community fleeing the UK with antisemitic incidents running at around seven a day this year.

Around 270 cases have been reported in 2009, according to figures compiled by the Community Security Trust (CST), the body that monitors anti-Jewish racism, with most blamed on anti-Israeli sentiment in reaction to hostilities in Gaza. Attacks recorded during the first Palestinian intifida of the late 1980s averaged 16 a month.

Scotland Yard is understood to have placed prominent Jewish communities on heightened alert, while the Association of Chief Police Officers' national community tension team is responding to intelligence by issuing weekly patrol directives to chief constables instructing them of threats to Jewish communities in their areas.

Incidents recorded by the CST include violent assaults in the street, hate emails and graffiti threatening "jihad" against British Jews. One disturbing aspect involves the targeting of Jewish children. A Birmingham school is investigating reports that 20 children chased a 12-year-old girl, its only Jewish pupil, chanting "Kill all Jews" and "Death to Jews". In another incident a Jewish schoolgirl reported being bullied at a non-Jewish school because of the Gaza conflict.