JANUARY 26 • 2023 | 5

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opinion

A Sobering Survey

A 

new survey 
commissioned by 
the Anti-Defamation 
League shows that antisemitic 
stereotypes in the United 
States have reached their 
highest level in 
decades. 
The data 
is “stunning 
and sobering,” 
says Jonathan 
Greenblatt, 
ADL’s chief 
executive officer. 
“I hope this 
survey is a wakeup call to the 
entire country.” 
It should be. 
The survey was conducted 
among a representative sample 
of more than 4,000 adults 
in September and October 
2022 and was released after 
the ADL recorded 2,717 
antisemitic incidents in the 
United States in 2021, the 
highest since 1979. 
It underscores the fact that 
“antisemitism in its classical 
fascist form is emerging again 
in American society, where 
Jews are too secretive and 
powerful, working against 
the interests of others, not 
sharing values, exploiting 
— the classic conspiratorial 
tropes,” said Matt Williams, 
vice-president of the ADL’s 
Center for Antisemitism 
Research. 
One of its most disturbing 
revelations is that 20% of the 
respondents agreed with six or 
more of 11 antisemitic tropes 
listed by the ADL. Three 
percent believed all the tropes. 
Eighty-five percent agreed 

with at least one trope. 
More specifically, 20% 
thought that Jews have “too 
much power,” while 21% 
said that Jews don’t care 
about anyone but themselves. 
Thirty-nine percent believed 
that Jews are more loyal to 
Israel than the U.S. 
According to the ADL, the 
findings indicate that a fairly 
substantial proportion of 
Americans believe Jews are 
“too powerful, selfish, foreign 
and clannish.” 
ADL found that many 
Americans with antisemitic 
beliefs tend to be anti-Israel 
as well. “ADL has seen the 
ways in which criticisms 
of Israel can exceed policy 
critiques and instead morph 
into traditional anti-Jewish 
conspiracy theories and 
antisemitic tropes as well as 
be weaponized to malign or 
increase hostility toward Jews 
generally.” 
Needless to say, American 
Jews will be bitterly disap-
pointed by the survey, having 
blithely assumed that their 
acceptance in American 
society was a fait accompli, 
carved into stone and could 
not be undone. 

America is still the goldenne 
medene for Jews, a country 
whose democratic traditions 
have enabled them to thrive 
and prosper as never before 
in the diaspora. But there are 
dark and inhospitable corners 
in this land where toxic and 
ineradicable hatreds flourish 
and flare. 
Hence the proliferation 
of white supremacist and 
neo-Nazi parties, from 
Aryan Nations to Storm 
Front. Hence the Unite the 
Right rally in Charlottesville, 
Virginia, in 2017 during 
which hundreds of bigots 
chanted “Jews will not replace 
us” in a nighttime march lit 
up by tiki torches. Hence 
Robert Bowers’ murderous 
rampage in 2018 during which 
he fatally shot 11 Jewish 
congregants in the Tree of 
Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, 
in the deadliest antisemitic 
attack in U.S. history. 
And long before these raw 
manifestations of anti-Jewish 
rage exploded, Jews were the 
targets of late-19th century 
nativists who sought to curb 
Jewish immigration. And in 
the 20th century, Jews were 
singled out for opprobrium by 

the Ku Klux Klan, the German 
American Bund, Father 
Charles Coughlin, the Silver 
Shirts and George Lincoln 
Rockwell of the American 
Nazi Party. 
Decent Americans were 
disgusted by Nazi Germany’s 
antisemitic campaign, but in 
the United States, Jews faced a 
litany of onerous restrictions 
in employment, housing, 
university and country club 
admissions that rendered 
them second-class citizens on 
a practical basis. 

A GOLDEN AGE?
The golden age of American 
Jewry dawned after World 
War II as a succession of 
barriers fell under the impact 
of progressive social change 
and federal legislation. 
Universities gradually 
dropped numerus policies that 
had limited Jewish student 
enrollment at institutions like 
Harvard and Princeton. 
Jews were selected as 
presidents of corporations and 
universities. U.S. presidents 
appointed Jews as advisers 
and cabinet ministers and 
gave them senior positions 
in federal agencies. Jewish 
ambassadors were chosen to 
head up embassies. In 2000, 
Joseph Lieberman was chosen 
as Al Gore’s running mate in 
the presidential election. 
It seemed as if Jews had 
finally arrived and were on 
an equal footing with the 
Anglo-Saxon elite, despite 
the occasional jarring 
incident that underscored the 
persistence of antisemitism. 

Sheldon 
Kirshner
Times of 
Israel

ACCORDING TO THE ADL, A FAIRLY 
SUBSTANTIAL PROPORTION 
OF AMERICANS BELIEVE JEWS 
ARE “TOO POWERFUL, SELFISH, 
FOREIGN AND CLANNISH.” 

