Anti-Semitic and negative attitudes toward Jews are “persistent and pervasive around the world,” the Anti-Defamation League announced on Tuesday during a press conference for the release of the ADL Global 100, a global survey of anti-Semitism.
Surveying over 50,000 people in 102 countries in what it termed the “most comprehensive assessment ever of anti-Semitic attitudes globally,” the ADL came to a number of conclusions.
26 percent of respondents worldwide are “deeply infected” with anti-Semitic attitudes, and only 54 percent have heard of the Holocaust. 67 percent stated that they have either never heard of the Nazi genocide or do not believe that accepted historical accounts are correct.
28 percent of respondents were free from any negative attitudes toward Jews.
Of those surveyed, 41 percent agreed with the assertion that “Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in,” making it the “most widely accepted stereotype in five out of the seven regions surveyed,” the ADL revealed.
35 percent of respondents said they believe that “Jews have too much power in the business world,” making it the most prevalent stereotype in Europe.
Such beliefs, the ADL stated, are “fueled by conspiracy theories on the Internet, and in some countries it is still politically expedient to scapegoat and blame Jews for social, economic and political ills by accusing them of having ‘dual loyalties’ or even of being a foreign enemy in their midst.”
70 percent of those labeled as anti-Semitic have stated that they have never met a Jew.
The highest concentration of anti-Semitic sentiment can be found in the Middle East and North Africa, with 74 percent of respondents agreeing with most of the negative stereotypes presented by the ADL. The next most anti-Semitic region is Eastern Europe, with 34 percent of respondents agreeing with the negative stereotypes, followed by Western Europe (24 percent), sub-Saharan Africa (23 percent), Asia (22 percent), the Americas (19 percent) and Oceania (14 percent).
The highest rates of anti-Semitism in Europe were in France (37 percent) and Greece (69 percent).
The least anti-Semitic countries in the world are Denmark (9 percent), the United States (9 percent), the United Kingdom (8 percent), Vietnam (6 percent), the Netherlands (5 percent), Sweden (4 percent), Philippines (3 percent) and Laos (0.2 percent).
English-speaking countries tend to have larger Jewish populations, and only 13 percent of those in English-speaking countries harbor anti-Semitic attitudes. Countries with a protestant majority also have a lower anti-Semitism rate than other majority religious countries.
Nearly half of Muslims are anti-Semitic, the survey found.
In conducting the survey, those who responded positively to six or more out of a set of 11 common Jewish stereotypes were deemed anti-Semitic by the New York-based Jewish advocacy group.
The ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman told reporters at the press conference that they purposely set the bar high. “We didn’t want to hype. We wanted to understate, rather than overstate, and to be careful that we’re only labeling those people who are really bad,” he said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.