YouGov study surveys attitudes towards British Jews

[Behind the Aegis]

Nearly half of the British population agreed with one of four antisemitic statements presented to them according to a new poll, which found that one in eight of those surveyed believe that Jewish people use the Holocaust as a means of gaining sympathy.

It also found that one in four (25%) Britons believed that Jews chase money more than other British people, a figure which rose to 39% of those participants who identified themselves as Ukip voters.

The research by YouGov was commissioned by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA), a network of activists in the UK which said that Britain was at a “tipping point” and warned that antisemitism would grow unless it was met by “zero tolerance”.

The group also carried out its own separate survey of British Jews, which found that 54% feared they had no future in the UK and that a quarter had considered leaving the country in the last two years.

more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/14/uk-jewish-antisemitism-rise-yougov-poll

[geek tragedy]

1. The more things change . . . nt

[leftynyc]

2. This isn't a surprise

to anyone with a brain.

[frazzled]

3. I remember some years ago ...

watching on PBS a never-before-seen British documentary about the liberation of the concentration camps at the the end of the war. The government had hired Alfred Hitchcock to help make it, and the purpose was to give the British people a sense of why they'd gone to war and suffered so much. What was interesting, is that in this film they didn't identify who the starving people or bodies in the mass graves were. It was explained that they didn't want to say they were (mostly) Jews, because anti-semitism was quite as high in Britain in those days as it had been in Germany. So they generalized the whole thing to avoid mentioning Jews, lest the whole propaganda thing backfire. It was shocking, but interesting.

[jwirr]

4. This is not surprising if one knows the history before WWII. Many Jews tried to get out of Germany

because they were afraid. Britain did not open its doors very easily. And when the people did make it into Britain they were not given a welcome. The poll shows that not much has changed.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Despite the events of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism was still high worldwide.

Many countries had quotas on the number of Jews allowed into various countries. Of course, in the US, with McCarthy, a new wave of anti-Semitism swept the country by associating Jews with communism.

[frazzled]

8. That's not quite it

We know all those things. It was that it was felt the British people would only care about the starving people, skeletons, and skin lampshades if they saw these things in general terms. If they knew these were Jews they wouldn't care, and may have felt their sacrifices in the war were not worth it. That remains shocking to me.

[MohRokTah]

5. I think the real problem is several millenia of anti-semitism.

The stereotypes get ingrained in a population and are difficult to counter after the big lies are repeated for so long.

[Behind the Aegis]

6. You are correct they are deeply ingrained into societies.

They even exist in places with few or no Jews. Both sides of the political spectrum share in perpetuating, endorsing, or ignoring anti-Semitism.

[Jesus Malverde]

9. Disgusting memes for political purposes.

"that a quarter had considered leaving the country in the last two years."

Implying that 25% of British Jews are disloyal to Britain and would leave given the opportunity. That is an long standing anti-semetic meme, implying disloyalty to their home countries.

"An overall majority - 54 per cent - of British Jewish people questioned for the survey said they fear Jews have no future in the United Kingdom."

Im sure most people of jewish faith and background are well integrated into British society and have no crisis of what their identity is.

The survey of 2200 people is hardly representative of British people of jewish faith and background. There is no indication that they polled people who don't actively practice their religion or have married into non Jewish families. In the united states 22% of people of Jewish background are non religious.

These "push polls" are a result of the successes of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement which many would like to label BDS as anti-Semitic to stifle it's successes.

In the USA, a huge percentage 22% of people of Jewish background are non religious and identify as secular.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/

The results are likely to be similar in Britain.

This shift in Jewish self-identification reflects broader changes in the U.S. public. Americans as a whole – not just Jews – increasingly eschew any religious affiliation. Indeed, the share of U.S. Jews who say they have no religion (22%) is similar to the share of religious “nones” in the general public (20%), and religious disaffiliation is as common among all U.S. adults ages 18-29 as among Jewish Millennials (32% of each).

Secularism has a long tradition in Jewish life in America, and most U.S. Jews seem to recognize this: 62% say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15% say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, more than half (55%) say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, and two-thirds say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish

Compared with Jews by religion, however, Jews of no religion (also commonly called secular or cultural Jews) are not only less religious but also much less connected to Jewish organizations and much less likely to be raising their children Jewish. More than 90% of Jews by religion who are currently raising minor children in their home say they are raising those children Jewish or partially Jewish. In stark contrast, the survey finds that two-thirds of Jews of no religion say they are not raising their children Jewish or partially Jewish – either by religion or aside from religion.

The rates in the UK may be higher for assimilation with the non jewish community ( According to the 1996 Jewish Policy Review, nearly one in two are marrying people who do not share their faith.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Jews

What we see is a broad rejection of all traditional religions by younger people who don't share the same ideals or practices as their parents on a number of issues.

To recap, a survey of religious Jews is not an indication of the experiences of people of jewish background. There is a crisis in the religious Jewish community as each successive generation increasingly rejects its practices as belonging to a bygone era. (32% among millennials.)

[Behind the Aegis]

10. You are correct, your post is a disgusting politcal meme.

"that a quarter had considered leaving the country in the last two years."

Implying that 25% of British Jews are disloyal to Britain and would leave given the opportunity. That is an long standing anti-semetic meme, implying disloyalty to their home countries.

NOTHING in the statement about leaving the country implies "disloyalty." The very fact you are trying to claim it is using an anti-Semitic meme is divisive and disingenuous to an entirely different level! Which you continue with this tripe...

"An overall majority - 54 per cent - of British Jewish people questioned for the survey said they fear Jews have no future in the United Kingdom."

Im sure most people of jewish faith and background are well integrated into British society and have no crisis of what their identity is.

The survey of 2200 people is hardly representative of British people of jewish faith and background. There is no indication that they polled people who don't actively practice their religion or have married into non Jewish families. In the united states 22% of people of Jewish background are non religious.

These "push polls" are a result of the successes of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement which many would like to label BDS as anti-Semitic to stifle it's successes.

In the USA, a huge percentage 22% of people of Jewish background are non religious and identify as secular.

Their having a fear doesn't indicate they aren't integrated into British society; it means they are afraid. German Jews were quite integrated in German life, so were Polish Jews. Your babble about who is and isn't religious is irrelevant; see: Nazi Germany. Your goalpost change in regards to BDS is laughable, but that you use it as an "excuse" to actually imply the Jews are reacting to the ridiculous BDS as opposed to anti-Semitism throughout Britain and Europe demonstrates an arrogance of not taking into consideration what a minority thinks, but rather telling them what they think.

So to recap, it isn't just about "religious" Jews, it is about Jews...PERIOD. Your slight of hand, making it about something it isn't, wasn't as good as you thought. Also, I also noticed you don't capitalize "Jewish" very often.

ETA: Since when is 22% a "huge percentage?"

[Jesus Malverde]

11. "a disconnect bordering on hysteria."

Haaretz the liberal Israeli newspaper had this commentary on the "poll".

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium-1.637071

The CAA deems each statement to be anti-Semitic — and this is the weakest point in the survey. Some of the statements are downright Judeophobic such as “in business, Jews are not as honest as most people.”

But take for example the statement that “Jews think they are better than other people.” Of course it’s not the thing that one should normally be caught saying in public - but is it anti-Semitic? For a start, many Jews do subscribe to the Jewish notion of “the chosen people,” and for that matter it’s not only Jews; members of many if not most nations, religions and ethnicities believe they are better than the others. That’s natural and normal national pride. Even if this view runs counter to liberal orthodoxy, believing that Jews think of themselves that way can certainly be a fair and honest assessment.

The same can be said of another of the survey’s statements: “Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy.” That’s a rather nasty accusation but the fact is too many Jews, both political leaders in public appearances and ordinary Jews on social media, are often too quick to bring up the Holocaust in order to make a point. The sad truth is that many Jews have cheapened the memory of the Holocaust by using it in an inappropriate fashion. Holding that opinion doesn’t necessarily make you an anti-Semite.

There are other statements there which are wrong or offensive, but agreeing with them isn’t necessarily evidence of anti-Semitism. In their eagerness to prove a point, the CAA has created its own definition of anti-Semitism, which is more a reflection of what is impolite to say in public than what is actual bias against Jews. Another group with a different definition could conduct a similar survey and come up with radically different results.

The CAA is a very young organization set up this summer following accusations from part of British Jewry that the veteran establishment was slow and weak in its response to the wave of anti-Israel protests during the Gaza conflict and the related rise in anti-Semitic offenses. While there certainly has to be vigilance against forms of Jew-hatred, the CAA seems to be over-diagnosing the illness.

This eagerness to see the anti-Semitism in Britain, which inarguably exists, as much more widespread than it really is, comes across in the second survey in the report, conducted directly by the organization among 2,230 British Jews. The survey was done over social media and though the CAA tried to widen its reach through the email lists of a number of large Jewish organizations, you don’t have to be a statistician to realize how such a sample is far from representative.

The last finding in the survey is that 56 percent agree that “the recent rise in anti-Semitism in Britain has some echoes of the 1930s.” If the majority of British Jews and the authors of the CAA report actually believe that, then it’s hard to take anything they say about contemporary anti-Semitism in their home country seriously. If they honestly think that the situation in Britain today echoes the 1930s when Jews were still banned from a wide variety of clubs and associations, when a popular fascist party, supported by members of the nobility and popular newspapers, were marching in support of Hitler, when large parts of the British establishment were appeasing Nazi Germany and the government was resolutely opposed to allowing Jewish refugees of Nazism in to Britain, finally relenting in 1938 to allow 10,000 children to arrive — but not their parents who were to die in the Holocaust (that shameful aspect of the Kindertransport that is seldom mentioned) — and when the situation of Jews in other European countries at the time was so much worse, then not only are they woefully ignorant of recent Jewish history but have little concept of what real anti-Semitism is beyond the type they see online.

Jews are represented in Britain in numbers that are many times their proportion of the population in both Houses of Parliament, on the Sunday Times Rich List, in media, academia, professions and just about every walk of public life. To compare today’s Britain, for all its faults, with the Jews’ situation in 1930s exhibits a disconnect from reality which borders on hysteria. Since the methodology of the second survey is so unclear, we can but hope that this isn’t the majority view among British Jews, but even if it reflects the feelings of a significant minority, it proves that the real crisis is one of a lack of self-confidence among Jews. Anti-Semitism in Britain is a problem that must not be belittled and has to be treated with a serious and open-eyed attitude. This report is not a step in that direction.

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium-1.637071

You were right, this unscientific survey was not about people of Jewish faith or background, it's actually about those who subscribed to a political action committees mailing list.



To recap, the CAA is a political organization that was set up to defend the Israeli attack on Gaza in which 2500 civilians were killed. The "poll" was conducted through social media and is not representative of any segment of the Jewish community in Britain, just of those who support CAA and want to defend Israel. The CAA are called out as having a strange sense of what is actually anti-semitism "bordering on hysteria". The CAA have no perspective or sense of history, going full godwin in their conclusions. People of Jewish faith and background are doing quite well in Britain.

Jews are represented in Britain in numbers that are many times their proportion of the population in both Houses of Parliament, on the Sunday Times Rich List, in media, academia, professions and just about every walk of public life.

To try and create a strawman for political purposes to excuse the excesses of Israel and it's apartheid state is frankly a bit embarrassing. Seeing the successes of the BDS movement and the moves by the palestinians to participate in the UN not entirely unsurprising. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

[Jesus Malverde]

12. New anti-Semitism, or new alarmism?

As a practising orthodox Jew, I am beginning to wonder whether I am alone in not feeling uncomfortable being a Jew in the UK and not questioning whether it can be my home for many years to come (“The new anti-Semitism”, 14 January).
Yes, there is anti-Semitism in this country, just as there is Islamophobia, homophobia and gender inequality. Yet the media’s apparent need to portray the Jewish community as victims so enthusiastically is increasingly troubling.

Many Jewish people have forged successful careers in the UK and found their heritage to be absolutely no impediment. We have a government that supports faith schools, a Prime Minister who hosts a Chanukah party at his residence, a 20ft Chanukiah in Trafalgar Square, thriving synagogues, kosher restaurants, coffee shops and book stores.

Isn’t it time to focus a little more on celebrating the great things about the Jewish community rather than wallowing in a negativity that might well sell newspapers but cannot be healthy for the United Kingdom?

Shimon Cohen
London NW5

I was most confused recently to find a survey in my inbox, full of leading questions directing me to express fear about the growth of anti-Semitism and inviting me to agree that as a result my thoughts had turned to emigration to Israel. This struck me as odd, because Israel constantly promotes itself as a country surrounded by enemies, surely making Israel one of the least safe places for Jews.

Vigilance against anti-Semitism is important, but manufactured fear is in no one’s interests.

Diana Nelson
Ilford, Essex

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/letters/letters-new-antisemitism-or-new-alarmism-9980272.html

[Behind the Aegis]

13. OH WOW!

You found opinions of Jews who didn't fit the group of those who fear what is happening in the UK. Oh, wait! That group was ALSO represented in the poll. So, they have the correct opinion, but the others, they are just "nuts".

[Behind the Aegis]

14. I can find examples from Nazi Germany, Austria, and Poland saying the same fucking thing.

Want to poll them? Might be a tad difficult.

To try and create a strawman for political purposes to excuse the excesses of Israel and it's apartheid state is frankly a bit embarrassing. Seeing the successes of the BDS movement and the moves by the palestinians to participate in the UN not entirely unsurprising. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The only strawman created was the one I just quoted.