Anti-Semitism Wanes in Parts of Europe
Earlier this summer, the Pew Research Center released a report with plenty of bad news for Europe's minorities.
In five European countries -- Hungary, Italy, Poland, Greece and Spain -- 50 percent or more of people surveyed expressed negative opinions of Muslims. The Roma had it even worse. Among 10 countries surveyed, a median of 48 percent of people held unfavorable views of the group.
The report, however, showed people's perceptions of Jews were overall more positive. "Negative attitudes toward Jews are much less common," the poll found. A median of only 16 percent of Europeans surveyed reported unfavorable views of Jews in their countries.
The picture of anti-Semitism in Europe is a complicated one, and experts say the continent is still plagued by negative perceptions of Jews. But according to Pew, anti-Jewish sentiment is actually on the wane or stable in four out of seven European countries with historical data.
In Germany, perception changed in a positive direction. In spring 1991, less than two years after the Berlin Wall came down, 53 percent of Germans had favorable views of Jews. In spring 2016, that had jumped to 88 percent.
Jay Geller, a professor of history and Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University, says that's not surprising.
"Germany, particularly Western Germany, has had nearly seven decades to consider the role of anti-Semitism in the fomenting of the Holocaust and to work to educate the populace about the dangers of antisemitism and ethnic discrimination," he says.
The fact that Germany has a diverse society and a growing Jewish population might also be contributing to evolving attitudes, says Ken Jacobson, deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Germany has at least 250,000 Jews living within its borders, but Jacobson estimates that number could be closer to 500,000. In recent years, many young Israelis have actually moved to Berlin seeking better economic opportunities.
"[Jews] have become a fairly normal part of German life, which is quite ironic," Jacobson says. And that familiarity, he says, breeds more tolerance and understanding.
The United Kingdom and Italy also saw increases of positive views since 2009, with 85 percent and 62 percent of people voicing positive perceptions, respectively. Although a Pew researcher said the change in the United Kingdom was statistically negligible.
In France, 85 percent of citizens held positive opinions of Jews in 2016, an increase from 72 percent in 1991, the last time the data was collected. By some measures, France has the largest Jewish population in Europe.
Geller, with Case Western Reserve University, says the evolving sentiment in France and elsewhere may be tied to recent attacks on European Jews. In France, Jews have been the targets of knife attacks. In 2015, four hostages were killed when a terrorist seized a Jewish grocery in Paris.
[READ: Terror attacks test French resolve]
"I do think that vile attacks on Jewish institutions in Europe, particularly Western Europe, have effected people's attitude towards Jewish citizens in their own countries," he says. "It's made many Europeans more aware of threats that European Jews face and has made them more sympathetic to the plight of their Jewish fellow citizens."
But there's also a troubling side to the poll.
In Hungary, perceptions of Jews have become less positive since 1991, with 32 percent of people harboring negative views today -- a trend Jacobson says isn't being helped by current politics.
"In Hungary you have a government that has some support of groups further to the right who are anti-Semitic," he says. "The atmosphere there has not been a very good one."
Fewer people in Spain -- 66 percent versus 72 percent in 2014 -- had positive views of Jews, though Pew says the decline is statistically insignificant. In Greece, 55 percent of citizens have negative views of Jews, up from 47 percent in 2014.
The Anti-Defamation League, which does its own survey of perceptions of Jews, named Greece the most anti-Semitic country in Europe in 2015. The country's politics seem to reflect it's changing attitudes. In 2012, the neofascist party Golden Dawn grabbed international headlines when it entered the Greek Parliament for the first time.
"Conspiracy theories seem to gain a lot of traction in Greece and they seem to have gained more traction since the collapse of the Greek economy," Geller says.
While Jacobson is happy to see perceptions of Jews improve in certain countries, he remains concerned that some trends could easily reverse.
"Far-right groups who have a long history of anti-Semitism, most of their focus these days are on Muslims," he says. "There is almost a different scapegoat. In many cases, Jews are not necessarily the targets, but does that bode well for Jews? It doesn't take much for them to move from Muslims to Jews."
Devon Haynie is news editor, international for U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dhaynie@usnews.com.
