By Daniel Vahab
NEW YORK– For more than I year and half now, I have been writing a book on antisemitism. To further my research, I developed a survey on the subject. . The short, anonymous survey, open to all, explores how Jews and antisemitism are perceived, as well as the thin line between a negative Jewish stereotype and an antisemitic one.
So far, nearly 320 people have taken it and most answered that they “personally” experienced antisemitism. An even greater majority of people “know someone” who has experienced the hate.
Compare that with only roughly 34 percent who felt that antisemitism has increased in the past twenty-five years in the United States.
One reason why antisemitism may have decreased is that, generally speaking, over time people have become more educated and thus less ignorant and antisemitic. Another reason may be that the older, more bigoted, generation has died off. For the former, education is something we, as a society, should control as best we can. And for the latter, time will simply solve that problem. Of course, there are many other factors involved.
And while most people polled have experienced antisemitism, roughly 37 percent answered that Jews in the United States are “less threatened” today than twenty-five years ago.
Antisemitism has always existed and may always exist, but how we react, if we react at all, is another question. As to whether people should intervene when there is antisemitism, most said “always,” followed by “It depends on the situation.” Fortunately, very few people said they would not intervene or that they were unsure.
For the question regarding antisemitic stereotypes, “Jews are cheap” got the greatest percent at roughly 83 percent deeming it antisemitic. This was followed by Jews being in charge of the banks (78.2 percent); the media (77.2 percent); and “Jews have big noses” (74.9 percent). The smallest percents were seen with “Jews have curly hair” (43.9 percent); “Jews are argumentative” (52.1 percent); and “Jewish boys are ‘momma boys’” and “Jews are bad at sports” (both at 52.5 percent).
But what is a Jew, really? There was a clear consensus among respondents that being Jewish means you are part of a religion (92.6 percent). To a lesser but still great extent, Jews were seen as part of an ethnicity (60.6 percent). But Jews as a race and nationality received low percents (29 and 32.7 percent).
Those who answered the volunteer demographic information revealed a sampling size ranging from fourteen years of age to sixty-seven. Locations of the respondents varied from Jerusalem and Iran to Canada, Mexico, and many U.S. cities.
Overall, people had many different ideas about what race and ethnicity are. For the ethnicity question, people wrote Jewish, Hindu, American, white, mixed, Eastern European, and more. For race, responses ranged from Jewish, white, and Caucasian to African American, and Hispanic. A few even wrote in “human.”
To take the survey, visit www.antisemitismsurvey.com .
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Vahab is a freelance writer and is also employed as a production editor and assistant to the managing editor for St. Martin’s Press, a division of Macmillan.