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The Perception of Anti-Semitism in Europe
In 2019, the European Commission published the results of the largest survey done continent-wide on anti-Semitism: 27,634 people were interviewed in the 28 member countries. The most obvious result is that 89% of the participating Jews believe that anti-Semitism has grown significantly in the last five years (and its growth does not seem to stop even today, in 2021). When considering the non-Jewish sample, only 36% of respondents felt that this was the case. Sweden and France were the countries whose citizens felt that hatred of Jews was an urgent problem.
The fact remains, however, that only 3% of Europeans consider themselves “very well informed” about Jewish history, while 68% say they “know nothing”. As misinformation increases, so does the incidents of anti-Semitism: most scholars in the field believe that the rising parabola of the phenomenon in Europe can be traced back to the 2000s. In 2015, it was the United States Department of Religious Liberty that publicly declared that “European anti-Israeli sentiment has crossed the border into pure anti-Semitism”.
Anti-Semitism in Europe has become a cultural and social emergency.
Sweden: anti-Semitism on the rise
On 6 April 2021, the first evening of Pesach , rag dolls were found hanging by their necks and smeared with red paint near the synagogue…
