ADL Index of Anti-Semitism

Britain has one of the lowest rates of anti-Semitism in the world, according to The ADL Global 100: An Index of Anti-Semitism, which was released by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on 13 May 2014.

Interviews were conducted, under the auspices of Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, with randomly selected samples of 53,100 adults aged 18 and over in 102 countries (comprising 86% of the world’s population) between July 2013 and February 2014. They included 510 in Britain, by telephone, from 9 August to 17 September 2013 by an unspecified agency.

The principal output from the research is an interactive website, permitting users to interrogate the data for individual countries, but there is also an executive summary which provides an overview of the results and methodology. Both can be accessed at:

http://global100.adl.org/

The index has been compiled from a list of eleven negative stereotypes about Jews, some included in previous (less extensive) ADL research and some new. Respondents who said that at least six of these statements were probably true were deemed to harbour anti-Semitic attitudes.

Across all 102 countries combined 26% of adults were classified as anti-Semitic on this measure, the largest proportion by far being in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA, on 74%), with the biggest score within MENA being the West Bank and Gaza (93%) and for a non-MENA nation Greece (69%). The aggregate score for English-speaking countries was 13%.

Britain scored 8%, placing it in 97th position, with only Vietnam, The Netherlands, Sweden, Philippines, and Laos recording lower figures. The British statistic was higher for men (10%) than women (6%) and, by age, peaked among those aged 35-49 (9%). It was twice as great among people without religion (12%) as Christians (6%), although the sub-sample of the former apparently represented under 140 individuals.

Of the eleven stereotypes, the most commonly accepted in Britain (as it was in the rest of the world) was that ‘Jews are more loyal to Israel than to this country/the countries they live in’. This was held by 27% of Britons (34% among 18-34s), the smallest number since ADL surveys began here in 2002 (comparative data for replicated stereotypes appear below). The next most prevalent stereotypes in Britain were that ‘Jews have too much control over the United States government’ (19%, with 24% for men) and ‘Jews have too much control over the global media’ (14%, with 19% among 18-34s).

Somewhat fewer than the 8% categorized by the ADL as anti-Semitic self-identified as holding unfavourable opinions of Jews – just 5%, the same as for Christians. Predictably (from other surveys), Muslims were the most negatively rated. However, in the case of all the non-Christian faiths, one-fifth of the British sample was undecided. This presumably reflected lack of direct acquaintance with the groups concerned (for instance, three-quarters said they rarely or never interacted with Jews) but may also have concealed some who were silently antipathetic. The full figures follow:

Rather more (16%) reported that ‘a lot of the people I know have negative feelings about Jews’, while two-fifths admitted to being very or fairly worried about violence directed at Jews or Jewish symbols/institutions in Britain. Such violence occurred somewhat often according to 6% of respondents, not that often for 27%, and never or almost never for 39%. Of the minority who could isolate the cause of the violence, far more Britons attributed it to anti-Israel sentiment as to anti-Jewish feelings, as had been the case in previous years (see trend data, below).

In fact, as many as 26% of Britons entertained an unfavourable attitude to Israel, with 38% favourable (against 54% being favourable to Palestine). A similar proportion (27%) agreed that their views of Jews were influenced to an extent, and invariably for the worse, by the actions of the State of Israel. This was much the same as in the four previous surveys (2005. 2007, 2009, and 2012) when the figure ranged from 20% to 28%.

There was overwhelming (99%) familiarity with the Holocaust, and there were no absolute Holocaust-deniers in the sample, albeit 6% believed that the number of Jews who had died in it had been greatly exaggerated. Of the remainder, 83% accepted the historical record of the scale of Jewish deaths, while 10% expressed no views. Far fewer accused Jews of talking too much about the Holocaust than in previous surveys – 10% versus a mean of 26% for 2002-12.

Jews accounted for well under 1% of Britain’s population at the 2011 census, yet only 22% of this sample correctly estimated that proportion. Almost half (47%) reckoned Jews constituted more than 1%, including 26% who believed they might form more than 2% of the population.

So far as Britain and several other countries are concerned, the ADL study will doubtless be compared with Jewish experiences and perceptions of anti-Semitism as reported by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on 8 November 2013. The UK data for the FRA survey derived from an online and entirely self-selecting sample of 1,468 Jews. See BRIN’s post of 15 November 2013 for further analysis.