WINCHESTER'S Jewish community will come together to celebrate Mitzvah Day for the first time today.

The traditional celebration encourages people of all faiths to take social action and collaborate to improve their communities.

Volunteers will plant bulbs to brighten up a garden by City Mill as one of hundreds of Mitzvah Day events taking place across Britain.

Maggie Carver, who owns a shop for the elderly in Winchester, said the main reason she set up a local event was a rise in anti-Semitism in the area after Israel's 50-day war in Gaza this summer.

Her daughter has been the victim of online intimidation because of her faith and another local Jew had received a death threat, she said.

“There were over 300 reported anti-Semitic incidents in the country last July, more than four times the number in 2012,” she said.

“I felt that there was a need to react in a positive way and to show that the Jewish community here want to live in peace and respect with their neighbours and to contribute to the community.”

Winchester has a “tiny” Jewish community, she added, but she expects around a dozen participants to come from across south Hampshire.

The work, which starts a week-long series of inter-faith events, starts at 11.30am, and participants will stop for food afterwards.