The northern British city of Manchester outstripped London last year in anti-Semitic incidents, figures released Thursday showed.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which records anti-Semitic incidents, noted last year was the fourth highest figure since incidents have started being recorded 28 years ago.  Anti-Semitism has been encouraged in some UK media, Israeli Ambassador to Britain Daniel Taub noted in December 2011.

Although London’s Jewish population is almost seven times that of Manchester, the smaller city saw 242 anti-Semitic crimes with a Jewish population of 21,700.

In one incident, two white women at a gas station actually hit a Jewish woman with a car, knocking her to the ground. They then walked over to her, spat at her, shouted “dirty Jew!” and got into their car and drove away.

A man in Salford was punched in the face and had his yarmulka ripped off his head, eggs were hurled at worshipers outside a synagogue on a Sabbath morning, and three Jewish children had a lit firework thrown at them.

In London, 201 incidents were reported, with a Jewish population of 149,800 in the British capital.

Among the 586 incidents reported across the UK all told were street attacks, threats, vandalism and desecration of Jewish property. These included 92 assaults, 63 accounts of vandalism, 29 direct threats and 394 reports of abuse.

“What we must acknowledge is that the number of anti-Semitic attacks is far too high,” Chief Police Superintendent Jon Rush, divisional commander for Bury, told The Guardian. “People in our Jewish community should be able to safely and freely go about their business without fear of being attacked.”  He added that the higher statistics were partly due to improved reporting in Greater Manchester.C