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Anti-Defamation League

January 5-18, 2024

The Details

1. Anti-Jewish trope beliefs continue to increase, and younger Americans are showing higher rates.

  • In a reversal of past trends, younger Americans are more likely to endorse anti-Jewish tropes, with millennials agreeing with the greatest number of anti-Jewish tropes on average, followed by Gen Z, Gen X and lastly, Baby Boomers.

  • In addition to individual attitudes, more than 42% of Americans either have friends/family who dislike Jews (23.2%) or find it socially acceptable for a close family member to support Hamas (27.2%).

2. Conspiratorial thinking and social dominance orientation are key predictors of anti-Jewish belief.

  • Belief in conspiracy theories continues to be one of the main correlates of antisemitic attitudes.

  • Anti-Jewish belief also correlates heavily with social dominance orientation – the belief that there should be higher status groups and that they should suppress lower status groups.

  • Those who at least somewhat agreed with the belief that the problems in the world “come down to the oppressor vs the oppressed” were 2.6 times more likely to fall in the top quartile of anti-Jewish trope belief compared to those who disagreed with the statement.

3. A significant percentage of Americans hold anti-Israel positions, but also support a Jewish state’s right to exist.

  • 1 in 5 Americans expressed support for removing Israeli products from a local grocery store and just under a third of Americans said supporters of Israel control the media. Younger Americans take these positions at significantly higher rates.

  • However, support for an independent Jewish state remains high, with 88.8% saying Jews have the right to an independent country. This is true even among those who take other anti-Israel positions.

  • October 7th and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has not resulted in major changes in the percentage of Americans who hold anti-Israel positions. However, in just about every anti-Israel position assessed, increased polarization appears evident (those who agreed or disagreed strongly to an Israel-related policty has grown, and those who somewhat agreed or disagreed has shrunk).

4. Individuals who held negative attitudes toward Israel-related policies, Israeli people, and Israel-oriented conspiracy theories were significantly more likely to believe anti-Jewish tropes.

  • Respondents not comfortable buying products from Israel were 3.4 times more likely to be among the top quartile of believers in anti-Jewish tropes.

  • Respondents who do not think Jews have the right to an independent country were 3.7 times more likely to be among the top quartile of believers in anti-Jewish tropes.

  • Respondents who believe Israelis intend to cause as much suffering to Palestinians as possible were 4.6 times more likely to be among the most antisemitic Americans.

  • Respondents who believe Israeli operatives are secretly manipulating US national policy through AIPAC or other influence tools were 7.5 times more likely to be among the top quartile of believers in anti-Jewish tropes.

5. Views of Hamas are also deeply concerning, with more than half of Gen Z expressing some degree of comfort being friends with a Hamas supporter.

  • Younger Americans were far more likely to feel comfortable being friends with a supporter of Hamas. Indeed, more than half of Gen Z, 51.3%, were at least somewhat comfortable being friends with a supporter of Hamas.

Key Takeaways

Not surprisingly, there’s an increasing concern for the state of antisemitism in America. Negative opinions of Israel are directly correlated to a tendency to believe anti-Jewish tropes. It’s becoming a chicken and egg question: is it antisemitism driving anti-Zionism, or anti-Zionism that’s increasing antisemitism?

Social networks and social norms increasingly point toward a growing acceptance of antisemitism. Again, not a surprise but very disconcerting, especially when we look at the next generation of decision-makers in America. We MUST turn the tide now, before it’s too late!  

Another surprise, but in the opposite direction, was that Israel sentiment hasn’t changed dramatically since October 7th, and there remains overwhelming support for an independent Jewish state. Perhaps a conclusion to this could be that while de jure, antisemitism exists, but de facto, those promoting it aren’t really realizing that being anti-Zionist by definition leads to becoming antisemitic. The question remains, though, if our efforts to make that connection haven’t borne fruit yet, perhaps we should try a different angle?

Methodology

Since 1964, ADL has measured to what extent Americans believe certain antisemitic tropes through detailed quantitative surveys. In this report, we provide results from our latest survey on antisemitism, a survey of 4,143 respondents, representative of the general US population, collected over a roughly two-week period in January 2024.

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