A nationwide survey of attitudes towards Jews in the USA was released on Nov. 3, 2011 by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). They reported a small rise in deeply anti-Semitic attitudes – from 11% to 15% - in the years 2009 to 2011. This finding confirms the existence of a small segment of America that continues to hold "anti-Semitic beliefs.
In fact, the recent ADL survey shows a relatively stable level of extreme anti-Semitism in the American polity for the last decade. While 15 percent of Americans hold deeply anti-Semitic views today, this has been at this level of hatred since 2002 when an ADL poll found 17 percent of Americans harbored anti-Jewish attitudes.
The 2011 Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews in America was conducted on October 13-23 by Marttila Strategies of Washington, D.C. and Boston using a national telephone survey of 1,200, plus an oversample of 243 African-Americans and 227 Hispanics, resulting in a total of 1,754 adults.
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director said: "It is disturbing that with all of the strides we have made in becoming a more tolerant society, anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip on a small but not insubstantial segment of the American public."
About a fifth of all Americans retain age-old myths about Jews and money and Jewish power in business. To the statement "Jews have too much control/influence on Wall Street," 19% answered "probably true," an increase from 14 percent in 2009. Agreeing to the statements: Jews had “too much power in business” were 20%, have too much power in the U.S. today” (14%), Jews are "more willing to use shady practices" (15%), and Jewish "business people are so shrewd, others don't have a chance" (16%).
A larger proportion of about a third, but still a minority of all Americans, continue to believe in the historical condemnation of Jews by Christians that "Jews were responsible for the death of Christ" (31%).
One-quarter of Americans believe that Jews "still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust," thirty percent (30%) believe that Jews are "more loyal to Israel than to America," a percentage that has remained virtually unchanged since ADL's benchmark survey in 1964, despite the changing makeup of the U.S population, and 33 percent said they believe Jews "always like to be at the head of things."
Demographic Trends, Minorities, and Anti-Semitism
According to the ADL poll, the most educated Americans are largely free of prejudicial views, or express opinions that are more politically correct. Less educated Americans are more likely to state anti-Semitic views. The poll found that 22 percent of who graduated high school or completed some high school harbor strongly anti-Semitic views, as compared to 13 percent among those who completed some college, and 9 percent among those who graduated from college.
The poll also looked at anti-Semitic views among significantly large minority groups:
Hispanics: Once again, Hispanic Americans born outside of the U.S. are more likely than Hispanics born in the U.S. to hold anti-Semitic views. According to the survey, 42 percent of foreign-born Hispanics hold anti-Semitic views, as opposed to 20 percent of U.S. born Hispanics.
African-Americans: In the past four years, anti-Semitic views among the African-American population have remained steady, but are consistently higher than the general population. In 2011, 29 percent of African-Americans expressed strongly anti-Semitic views. That percentage is consistent with the findings of past surveys.
The steady growth of the Hispanic population, now at 15 percent of the adult population, means that Hispanics and African-Americans together now comprise 27 percent of the American population, a number that is sure to grow in the coming years. This population increase of the cohorts with a substantially higher percentage of anti-Semitic beliefs than the total population also means that anti-Semitic propensities in the coming years will be a challenge, according to the ADL poll.
Positive Findings
Balancing out the minority who hold anti-Semitic views of Jews are the substantial proportion of Americans who held Jews in high regard on many key measurements. Even Americans who hold the most anti-Semitic views agreed with many positive statements about Jews, including:
• Jews emphasize the importance of family life (83 percent);
• Jews have a strong faith in God (79 percent);
• Jews have contributed much to cultural life of America (64 percent);
• Nearly 50% agreed with the statement that Jews "stick together more than other Americans.
Further reading:
The Anti-Defamation League 2010 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents
