A new survey finds that the percentage of Americans agreeing to six or more “classic” antisemitic statements has doubled since similar surveys in 2014, 2015, and 2019.
The research, carried out by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a US-based Jewish NGO specialising in civil rights law, delved further into anti-Israel sentiments than its previous surveys and revealed substantial belief in anti-Jewish tropes – including perceptions Jews are too powerful, selfish, foreign, and clannish.
The survey of a representative sample of more than 4,000 U.S. adults asked the extent to which Americans agreed with different statements about anti-Jewish tropes and found that 20 per cent of Americans – as many as 66 million people – agreed with six or more of the 11 anti-Jewish statements used since 1964.
The survey concluded that 40 of Americans agree, at least to some extent, that “Israel treats the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews”.
Almost a quarter (24 per cent) of Americans believe, at least to some extent, that Israel and its supporters are a bad influence on “‘our’ democracy”.
Meanwhile, 23 per cent of Americans agreed, at least to some extent, that “Israel can get away with anything because its supporters control the media”, and 18 per cent say they are uncomfortable spending time with a pro-Israel person.
ADL also asked respondents the extent to which they agreed with anti-Israel beliefs and found a high number of Americans who hold extremely negative antisemitic views.
“These anti-Israel beliefs are not commentary on Israeli government policies,” Greenblatt stressed, adding: “They are antisemitism in another form.”
A significant chunk (39 per cent) of respondents believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States, while 21 per cent agree that Jews “don’t care about anyone other than themselves.
Over half (53 per cent) said Jews will go out of their way to hire other Jews.
“Those of us on the front lines have expected such results for a while now – and yet the data are still stunning and sobering: there is an alarming increase in antisemitic views and hatred across nearly every metric — at levels unseen for decades,” said ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt on Wednesday.
“From Pittsburgh to Charlottesville to the near-daily harassment of Jews in our greatest cities, antisemitic beliefs lead to violence. I hope this survey is a wake-up call to the entire country.”
Three per cent of the population believes every one of the 11 tropes respondents were asked about. If representative, this figure could represent approximately 10 million Americans, more than the total number of Jews in the United States.
While young adults show less belief in anti-Jewish tropes (18 per cent believe six or more tropes) than older adults (20 per cent), the difference is substantially less than measured in previous studies.
Additionally, young adults hold significantly more anti-Israel sentiment than older adults, with 21 per cent and 11 per cent agreeing with five or more anti-Israel statements, respectively.
“As concerning as these findings are, they also provide helpful direction for developing more effective interventions to fight various types of antisemitism,” Mr Greenblatt said.
“We plan to work with our partners from other Jewish community and civil rights organisations to refine strategies for addressing the root causes of anti-Jewish hate.”
“This survey is perhaps the most in-depth study of Jewish hate in the U.S. ever conducted, garnering input from a diverse expert panel in its conception, it included in-depth hour-long one-on-one interviews with over 100 Americans, and also nearly 4,200 interviews via a comprehensive survey,” said David Dutwin, Senior Vice President with NORC at the University of Chicago.
“It is fully representative of the U.S. and leverages state-of-the-art survey techniques to generate the most honest and unbiased views of the American public possible.”
The survey was conducted online in September and October 2022.
ADL said the survey included a weighted, representative sample of 4,007 respondents from the NORC AmeriSpeak panel. The margin of error is +\- 2.06 percentage points.
The research incorporated work undertaken at King’s College London and Goldsmiths, University of London, and the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism.
It uses questions that were developed by Daniel Allington and David Hirsh and later validated in a series of statistical analyses that those scholars carried out with psychometric testing expert Louise Katz.
Goldsmiths lecturer and LCSCA Academic Director Dr Hirsh said: “We have seen antisemitism more frequently in political discourse: on the populist left and the populist right and in Islamist, Christian and Black Nationalist milieus. This rise now seems to be measurable in the population as a whole.”
LCSCA Research Fellow and Reader in Social Analytics at King’s College London Dr Daniel Allington said: “To understand the way people think about Jews, you need to listen to what they say about Israel.
“Building on our work, the new ADL survey forms part of a large and growing body of evidence demonstrating that attitudes to both are closely interlinked.”
The survey found, in confirmation of Allington, Hirsh, and Katz’s work, that there is a substantive correlation between "classic" antisemitic sentiment and "antizionist" antisemitic sentiment.
