FRA survey on discrimination and hate crime against Jews in EU Member States

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) today published its ground breaking survey of Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of hate crime, discrimination and antisemitism in the EU.

The survey covers the UK, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Italy Hungary, and Latvia: around 90% of the estimated Jewish population in the EU. It will enable European politicians to understand Jewish concerns and to better respond to them.

CST wrote a preview of the survey, with some of its pre-released findings, on the CST Blog last week. The full survey has been published today and is available here, with a summary here (pdf). The full data of the survey can be explored here. It is highly detailed, with dozens of questions answered for each country.

Due to the wealth of information revealed, any summary will inevitably be limited. Some of the key findings are summarised below, in which figures are averaged out for Europe as a whole. Next week, CST Blog will analyse the UK statistics and other details.

Key findings - Europe general and UK:

Across Europe, 66% of respondents consider antisemitism to be a "very big" or "fairly big" problem in their countries. The UK is lowest, at 48%, and France is highest, at 85%.

Across Europe, 76% say the situation has worsened in the last five years. In the UK this figure is 66%; France is again the highest, at 88%.

Antisemitism is considered the fourth most-pressing social or political issue across the countries surveyed.

Across Europe, in the 12 months before the survey, 26% of respondents experienced one or more incident of antisemitic harassment, which includes verbal abuse or other threatening behaviour in the street, hate mail and antisemitism on social media. The figure for the UK was 21%. Across Europe, 4% of survey respondents had suffered antisemitic physical attack or a threat of violence during the previous year (3% for UK). 76% of victims of antisemitic harassment did not report the most serious incident to the police or any other organisation. (71% in the UK).

Perpetrators of the most serious incidents of antisemitic harassment were described by respondents. Across Europe, 27% of perpetrators were perceived as someone with “Muslim extremist views”; 22% were perceived as “left-wing political views”; and 19% as “right-wing views”. The survey report does not give individual country analysis.

Close to half of all respondents (46%) worry about being verbally insulted or harassed in a public place. One third (33%) worry about being physically attacked because of being Jewish. The UK has the lowest levels of fear, with 28% worrying about verbal abuse and 17% worrying about physical attack. Highest is France, at 70% and 60% respectively.

Across Europe, 19% experienced discrimination due to their religion  in the past 12 months. For the UK this figure was the second-lowest at 16%, but the UK showed the highest rate of reporting such discrimination, at 24%.

Across Europe, 27% at least occasionally avoid local places because they do not feel safe there because they are Jewish. Belgium (42%), Hungary (41%) and France (35%) are the worst places for this. 23% at least occasionally avoid Jewish events or sites for the same reason. 68% of respondents at least occasionally avoid wearing items in public that might identify them as Jewish. The figure for the UK is 59%; the highest figures were in Sweden (79%) and France (75%).

Across Europe, 11% have either moved or considered moving out of their neighbourhood in the past five years due to concerns for their safety as Jews. 29% have, at some time or other, considered emigration: this rises to 48% for Hungary, 46% for France and 40% for Belgium. In the UK, 18% have considered emigration.

Across Europe, 94% of all respondents consider somebody who says "The Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated" to be antisemitic. 81% consider somebody who says "Israelis behave 'like Nazis' towards the Palestinians" to be antisemitic. 72% consider somebody who supports boycotts of Israeli goods or products to be antisemitic. 34%  consider somebody who criticises Israel to be antisemitic. In the UK, the figures are 96%, 76%, 65% and 32% respectively.

Across Europe, 75% of respondents considered antisemitism on the internet to be a problem, and 73% thought it had increased over the past 5 years. In the UK, these figures were 63% and 64% respectively.

Across Europe, 68% of respondents said that the Arab-Israeli conflict impacts how safe they feel as a Jewish person in their country. This falls to 57% for the UK, but rises to 90% for France and 93% for Belgium.

The survey also showed significant differences between countries. For example, in the UK, 9% of respondents said they had often heard the statement “Jews are responsible for the current economic crisis”, while this figure rose to 59% for Hungary.

CST public statement

In response to media enquiries, CST’s public statement regarding the survey is:

The details change from place to place, but this official survey shows that many European Jews are increasingly affected by antisemitism and related trends. In some countries, including Britain, politicians and police are trying to deal with the problem, but these efforts are sorely needed everywhere. Jews also require basic anti-racist solidarity in all of this: solidarity that has been partial, or deliberately denied, far too often since the year 2000.

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Survey methods

FRA designed this survey to collect, for the first time, comparable data on antisemitic violence, harassment and hate speech to help tackle antisemitism today. The findings in the survey report compile the results from eight survey countries, which account for some 90% of the estimated Jewish population in the European Union. The results are based on the responses from 5,847 self-identified Jewish respondents (aged 16 or over) living in one of eight EU Member States – Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Due to the sample size, the country results for Romania, one of the countries where the survey was carried out, are not included in the analysis of the survey results. However, the results from Romania are summarised in the report’s annex.

FRA designed the survey. The survey was carried out online from September to October 2012 - under contract to FRA following an open call for tender – by Ipsos MORI in partnership with the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) in the UK. It was available in the languages of the survey countries, as well as Hebew and Russian. CST has long-standing relationships with both FRA and JPR and senior CST staff played an advisory role in the project.

The survey asked respondents for their opinions and perceptions on antisemitic trends and antisemitism as a problem in everyday. The respondents were also asked to describe their personal experiences of antisemitic incidents, witnessing antisemitic incidents and worrying about being a victim of an antisemitic attack (affecting their personal safety, safety of children, or other family members and friends). The survey also provides data on whether the occurrence of antisemitic acts against the Jewish community, such as vandalism of Jewish sites or antisemitic messages in the broadcast media or in the internet, is considered to be a problem in their countries by the Jewish respondents. In addition, the survey collected socio-demographic data, such as respondents’ gender and age, educational background, employment status, and income.

More data and analysis from the survey will be published on the CST Blog next week.