A new survey from ADL (the Anti-Defamation League) polled antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes across the J7 task force countries, home to some of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel.
The survey revealed that nearly 40 percent of respondents agreed with at least six antisemitic tropes. Among the findings, 56% of all respondents in the seven countries agreed with the age-old “dual loyalty” trope, or the notion that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country, with percentages varying from 51% of those polled in the US, to 64% in Argentina and Germany.
The survey also reveals that belief in the trope that, “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars” has increased as well, rising to 23 percent in Argentina (up from 13 percent in 2019); 19 percent in the United States (up from 5% in 2015); 17 percent in France, (up from 3% in 2023); and 17 percent in Germany, up from 4% percent in 2023. The survey also found that the highest level of antisemitism occurs among Millennials (b. 1981-1996) in these countries, while Millennials and Generation Z (b. 1997-2012) hold the least favorable views of Israel, and Baby Boomers (b. 1946-1964) and the Silent Generation (b. 1928-1945) hold the most favorable views.
“After years of antisemitism mostly keeping to the fringes of society, it is alarming to see the percentage of people who harbor antisemitism and anti-Israel beliefs rising both in the United States and around the world,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “This troubling trend demands our immediate attention and unified action. We will continue to work closely with our partners in the J7 Large Communities’ Task Force Against Antisemitism to record incidents and trends, combat extremism, and ensure the safety and security of Jewish communities globally.”
The findings also highlight a trend that as Israel is demonized, support of Hamas is being slowly normalized. On average, over 15 percent of respondents view Hamas “very” or “somewhat favorably.” The favorable view of Hamas increases to 26 percent among Generation Z.
Additional survey findings include:
· Respondents from the UK and Canada have the lowest national averages of antisemitic beliefs, while respondents from France and Argentina have the highest.
· The second-most widely accepted trope across the J7 countries is that “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.” Agreement with this trope varied, from 66 percent in Argentina and 55 percent in Germany to 28 percent in the United Kingdom and 33 percent in the United States.
· Conspiratorial thinking is the single largest predictor of heightened antisemitism, even stronger than Holocaust denial.
· Although Holocaust denial is less than 2% in J7 countries, Holocaust distortion – the belief that the Holocaust happened, but the number of Jews who died was greatly exaggerated – ranged between 5 and 15 percent, with the highest levels recorded in Argentina (15%) and the U.S. (11%).
· Argentina (17%), France (13%), and the US (12%) have the highest level of respondents who haven’t heard about the Holocaust.
ADL’s Senior Vice President for International Affairs, Amb. Marina Rosenberg said, “The tsunami of anti-Jewish hate unleashed worldwide after the Hamas atrocities of October 7 has reached unprecedented levels, reviving age-old antisemitic tropes. While antisemitism was on the rise even before Hamas’s brutal attack, the global surge in antisemitic attitudes and incidents since October 7 is unparalleled.”
ADL’s Antisemitism Index, an analytical tool for identifying respondents who harbor antisemitic attitudes, is a set of questions used to gauge adherence to traditional antisemitic tropes and stereotypes shown to lead to hostility and violence. The J7 survey polled antisemitic and anti-Israel attitudes across the J7 countries: Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. The study was fielded between Feb. 27 and March 8, 2024, by the ADL Center for Antisemitism Research in partnership with YouGov. The sample size of the study was 1,000 respondents per country, with a total of 7,000 respondents polled. The margin of error ranges between +/-3.15 and +/-4.03.