I started to write this article after catching up with some Jewish friends in London.

The conversation was about work and the weather and all the usual things that friends chat about. But there was one ominous topic too.

The people I met are a mix of Scots and Londoners. They are Jews as well. And the conversation turned to the shocking findings of a survey on attitudes towards anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is the hate that outlives all others. It's the oldest and most consistent form of global bigotry.

The survey highlighting the scale of anti-Semitism in the UK should stop everybody in their tracks. According to YouGov, 45 per cent of those surveyed agreed with an anti-Semitic statement. Worryingly, one quarter of people polled believe "Jews chase money more than other British people". Apart from the awful and unfounded stereotype, there's also an undercurrent that Judaism and patriotism are incompatible.

The callous targeted murder of four people in a kosher supermarket in Paris shocked us all. Following so quickly after the assault on democracy itself with the attack on the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, it once again brought to the fore the fear that so many Jews across the world live in. For too many Jews, the simple act of going to synagogue on a Saturday can be fraught with danger.

Too often we hear of the need for security guards to protect worshippers. That can't be right.

The Community Security Trust, the body that monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, said of the survey:

"People are worried. They have seen what has happened in Paris as an indication of how things could potentially get here if the situation gets worse.

"Things are not the same in Britain as they are in France. There is not the same level of hostility or day-to-day anti-Semitism. But there is an element of fear that it could happen here and we must do our utmost to unite and stand against it."

The situation here isn't the same as in France, but sometimes in our country we can be a bit too pleased with ourselves that anti-Semitism doesn't exist. There is a cosy consensus that, in a society as progressive as ours, intolerance and bigotry of this kind are a thing of the past. The YouGov survey confirms that simply isn't the case and shows we can never be complacent.

It's important to distinguish between criticisms of the Israeli government, which are entirely legitimate, and the sinister world of anti-Semitism. I'm a big critic of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and oppose so much of what he is doing. I'd rather he wasn't the Prime Minister of Israel.

But, too often, a dislike of the politics of Mr Netanyahu, or whoever is in government in Israel at any given time spills over into a hatred of the Jewish people as a whole. Conflating the two is a dangerous road to go down.

Education is key to challenging anti-Semitism. Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 is an opportunity for people to learn afresh the horror of what happened during the Second World War. It's a chance not just for kids in our schools to hear about the awful fate suffered by millions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis, but also for older people to be reminded of Europe's not-to-distant history.

The survey is a call to action for all of us. We can't leave it just to the Jewish community to fight anti-Semitism. It needs all of us, people of all faiths and none. Only when we work together as a society and say loudly with one voice that we will not tolerate this bigotry will we ever get close to stamping it out.

Jim Murphy is the Scottish Labour leader.