The smartphone footage is shocking enough, had it been recorded anywhere else in the world. The fact of it occurring on a Saturday afternoon on Glasgow’s Buchanan Street shopping precinct somehow seems to lend it a more chilling aspect.

We see a grown man, accompanied by a young girl. His face is contorted with a rage that renders him barely articulate. He shouts: “Jew! Murderer; Jew! Murderer!”

The objects of his fury are the volunteers who operate the long-standing Glasgow Friends of Israel pavilion. One of them tries forlornly to have a reasonable chat with the enraged man, but to no avail. What makes this chap’s hatred even more distressing is the bewildered look on the little girl’s face as she witnesses the meltdown.

This is a routine occurrence for Sammi Stein, his wife Vikki and their fellow volunteers. I’ve witnessed this too. I’d been meaning to stop by the Friends of Israel stall long before now, following the Bondi Beach attacks where 15 people were murdered last December during a celebration of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Ten days earlier, two Jewish people were murdered during an attack on a Manchester synagogue. In March this year, four vehicles operated by the Jewish medical charity Hatzola were set ablaze in London’s Golders Green district.

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Scotland is renowned throughout the world’s Jewish communities for being one of the very few countries where Jews have always been welcomed. “Scotland has always been a safe haven for our community,” says Vikki Stein. This is something that makes both her and her husband very proud.

Lately though, the steady drumbeat of antisemitism, following the Hamas slaughter of 1200 innocents on October 7, 2023, has grown louder and nearer. Last month, what many regarded as an antisemitic mock-up of the Jewish actress, Maureen Lipman, was distributed widely, depicting her with Satanic horns, after it was announced she was to perform in Aberdeen and Glasgow.

On Wednesday, Police Scotland announced it would not pursue the Lipman incident as a hate crime. Ms Lipman has since revealed she’s had to hire a private security firm as she........

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