Scholar Says Wales' Tiny Jewish Population Has Not Spared It From Antisemitism

A leading expert on Welsh Jewry has warned that the near absence of Jews in Wales has not prevented antisemitism from taking root there. Professor Nathan Abrams of Bangor University made the remarks to The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Abrams was born into a Jewish family in North London and has lived in Wales for twenty years. He speaks Welsh fluently. His recent book, Jews in the Welsh Imagination: Medieval Times to the Present, examines how the nation has viewed Jews over the centuries. "For most of Wales's existence as an entity, for 15 centuries, there have been no Jews here," he said, adding that the Welsh fascination with Jews is "inversely proportional to the numbers."

The 2021 UK Census counted 2,044 people in Wales who identified as Jewish by religion, about 0.07% of a population of 3.1 million. Most live in Cardiff, which has a Reform synagogue and an Orthodox synagogue. A Chabad synagogue serves Llandudno, and small groups or individual Jews live in other cities.

Antisemitism in Wales is hard to measure because UK-wide statistics typically do not break figures down by country. Welsh police recorded 6,157 hate crimes between April 2025 and March 2026, including 4,098 motivated by race and 325 motivated by religion, down from 451. The data does not say which religion was targeted, so anti-Jewish crimes cannot be isolated.

Other sources give partial detail. The Community Security Trust recorded 25 antisemitic incidents associated with Wales in calendar year 2025: 13 in North Wales, 8 in South Wales, 2 in Dyfed-Powys and 2 in Gwent. A Freedom of Information disclosure showed Dyfed-Powys Police recorded 17 anti-Jewish crimes in 2025, up from 12 in 2024, an increase of about 42%. That figure covers only that policing area and may miss offenses recorded under other categories. The gap with the CST numbers suggests actual incidents may exceed those reported to the trust.

The Welsh Local Government Association recently met Jewish community representatives from across Wales to discuss tackling the problem. Participants described growing anxiety, including routine verbal abuse, concern for children in schools and people changing their behavior to avoid being identified as Jewish in public. The South Wales Jewish Representative Council called the community "long-established and deeply rooted" and "resilient," but said the rise in antisemitism in recent years has left many "shaken and concerned."

Abrams described Wales as "a microcosm of England," with much of the antisemitism appearing on social media and tied to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He pointed to "ambient antisemitism," in which demonstrations, torn-down posters and stickers create an environment where Jews are not comfortable being themselves, even without physical harm.

His own experience is shaped by living in northwest Wales, which he described as highly nationalist, Welsh-speaking and supportive of Plaid Cymru. The left-leaning party is critical of Israel, has long campaigned for recognition of a Palestinian state and deems Israel's actions to be genocide. In September 2025, its leader called for "harsh sanctions against the Israeli Government" over Gaza. Abrams said Welsh nationalists see themselves as "the Palestinians of the British," and that this produces an obsession with Israel. "You'll get the antisemitism that's expressed by people who don't think they're being antisemitic," he said.

He also noted a class divide. Working-class people, he said, probably do not care and may resent the demonstrators more, while middle-class protesters are "kind of indistinguishable from the academic antisemitism." Much of it goes unspoken in front of Jews because "Welsh society is polite." Outside the cities, he said, it tends to come from older white people who are well-meaning but repeat age-old tropes unknowingly. Abrams concluded that "the complexity of Jewishness is still reduced to the Middle East conflict."