European Jewish Community Leaders Expect Anti-Semitism To Grow Over Next Decade - Survey

Two-thirds of European Jewish community leaders believe that the level of anti-Semitism will continue to grow in Europe over the next ten years, but this trend does not correspond with the prospect of European Jews leaving Europe, a survey reveled on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 20th November, 2018) Two-thirds of European Jewish community leaders believe that the level of anti-Semitism will continue to grow in Europe over the next ten years, but this trend does not correspond with the prospect of European Jews leaving Europe, a survey reveled on Tuesday.

According to the fourth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals, conducted every three years by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's (JDC) European research division, Western European respondents were more likely to consider anti-Semitism as a threat than Eastern Europeans were.

"Since the 2015 edition of the survey, antisemitism is viewed as being on the rise and as a major threat by Europe's Jewish leaders. The current survey has confirmed this trend. When asked if they expected changes over the course of the next five to 10 years regarding antisemitism, respondents tended to be pessimistic, with 66% expecting antisemitic prejudice to increase significantly or somewhat (as opposed to 67% in 2015)," the survey said.

Around a quarter of respondents believed that the level of anti-Semitism would remain the same and only 4 percent expected it to decrease, while another 4 percent were unable to give a definitive answer.

"The survey also shows that the prospect of leaving Europe is not on the agenda of most of the respondents with 76% reporting that over the past 5 years they have not considered emigrating while most respondents expect only limited emigration of Jews from their countries," the JDC said.

When asked how safe they felt to live and practice as Jews in their countries, over 80 percent of respondents said that felt very or rather safe, while 13 percent said they felt rather unsafe and 4 percent said they did not feel safe at all.

The survey was conducted online in 10 languages and administered to 893 respondents in 29 countries.