The Weather Outside is Frightful

Another blizzard is coming through Chicago.

Julie's post on the ADL's 2009 European anti-Semitism survey inspired me to read the survey memo for myself. The data can be a little hard to parse at times, but overall paints a rather disturbing picture.

The survey was conducted over 7 European countries: Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom (500 questioned in each country, MoE +/- 4%). The heart of the survey was contained in these four questions:

1) Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country. (49%)
2) Jews have too much power in the business world. (40%)
3) Jews have too much power in international financial
markets. (41%)
4) Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in
the Holocaust. (44%)

Percentages are of respondents who labeled this statement "probably true" across all countries. Each country's response rate for each question was also broken out individually. The worst case country-to-stereotype was Spain's answer to "Jews have too much power international financial markets" -- a whopping 74% agreed. For every question, the UK demonstrated the lowest levels of support. As noted though, the statement which got the highest overall level of support was "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country" (high: Spain 64%, low: UK: 37%).

The ADL then charted what percentage of respondents agreed with at least three of the above four statements. The "winners" were Spain, Poland, and Hungary, with 48%, 48%, and 47% (respectively) fitting this criteria. Austria came next at 30%, followed by France and Germany (20%) and finally the UK (10%).

The ADL also asked several follow-up questions which were not included in evaluating the overall levels of anti-Semitic sentiment. For example, 23% of Europeans believe that Jews are responsible for the death of Christ (Poland is the far and away leader in this category, at 48%). The survey also asked respondents if they felt that violence directed against Jews in their country was the result of anti-Israel or anti-Jewish sentiment. For the most part, they believed it was due to anti-Jewish feelings (38% to 24%). The exception was Spain, where "anti-Israel" held a 38% - 26% lead over "anti-Jewish".

Finally, the ADL also tried to get a feel for whether Jews were being blamed for the global financial crisis. They asked

How much blame do you place on Jews in the financial industry for the current global economic crisis? Do you blame them a great deal, a good amount, a little or not at all?

The ADL here charted those answering "a little" or higher, and found that 31% of respondents blamed the Jews at least "a little" for the crisis. Hungary led the way with 46%, followed by Austria (43%) and Poland (38%).

Finally, these were the questions that elicited the strongest levels of support for each country:

More loyal to Israel: France (38%), Germany (53%), Poland (63%), UK (37%)

Power in business: Hungary (67%)

Power in international markets: Spain (74%)

Too much talking about the Holocaust: Austria (55%)

And the least support:

More loyal to Israel: Hungary (40%)

Power in business: Austria (36%), Germany (21%), UK (15% -- tie)

Power in international markets: France (27%), Poland (54%), UK (15% -- tie)

Too much talking about the Holocaust: Spain (42%)