Action and Protection League (APL) commissioned the European Antisemitism Survey to learn on the prevalence of antisemitic attitudes among the European population as a whole, and on a country-by-country basis across Europe. The research is based on responses to 70 questions and follow up interviews of 1,000 individuals between December 2019 and January 2020 in 16 European countries: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
We used a total of 24 questions to measure antisemitism. We measured the cognitive and conative dimensions of prejudice with 10 questions, and three additional questions for the affective dimension of antisemitism, that is, to measure the emotional charge of antisemitic prejudice. We mapped secondary antisemitism relativizing the Holocaust with seven questions and antisemitic hostility against Israel with four questions. We used two and three questions, respectively, to measure sympathy for Jews and for Israel.
With the exception of questions about affective antisemitism, all questions were asked in the same form: Respondents were asked to indicate on a five-point scale how much they agreed with the statements in the question (strongly agree; tend to agree; neither agree nor disagree; tend to disagree; strongly disagree).
Having analyzed other available resources on antisemitism in Europe, including data on Jew’s perceived safety (FRA’s Experiences and perceptions of antisemitism) and antisemitic incidents, APL proposes to create a unified, integrated antisemitism index. We can draw from such a sensitive indicator the future conclusions in picking best practices in education, research, legislation and security.
APL for now, as a first step, has created a new comprehensive antisemitism database that integrates existing research and antisemitic hate crime reports from Jewish communities across Europe.
The research results are in the study below.
