via ADL:
New York, NY – - A nationwide survey of the American people released Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic attitudes have risen slightly in America, demonstrating once again that “anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip” on a small but not insubstantial segment of America.
The ADL survey (.pdf) found that 15 percent of Americans – nearly 35 million adults – hold deeply anti-Semitic views, an increase of 3 percent from a similar poll conducted in 2009, and matching the levels of anti-Semitic propensities recorded in the U.S. in 2005 and 2007. Over the last decade, the highest level of anti-Semitic attitudes was reported in 2002, when an ADL poll found 17 percent of Americans harbored anti-Jewish attitudes.
The 2011 Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews in America, a national telephone survey of 1,754 adults, was conducted October 13-23 by Marttila Strategies of Washington, D.C. and Boston. The margin of error is +/-2.8 percent.
Anti-Semitic propensities are measured by an 11-question index developed by ADL more than 40 years ago. The index includes 11 statements used to gauge the anti-Semitic attitudes of the respondents.
In the new survey a surprising number of Americans agreed with sharply worded criticisms of Jews:
• Fourteen percent (14%) agreed with the statement that “Jews have too much power in the U.S. today,” an increase from 13 percent in 2009.
• Fifteen percent (15 %) agreed that Jews are “more willing to use shady practices,” up slightly from 2009.
• Sixteen percent (16%) agreed that Jewish “business people are so shrewd, others don’t have a chance,” up from 13 percent in 2009.
• Thirty percent (30%) believe that Jews are “more loyal to Israel than to America,” a percentage that has remained virtually unchanged since ADL’s benchmark survey in 1964, despite the changing makeup of the U.S population.
• Nearly half of all respondents agreed with the statement that Jews “stick together more than other Americans, and 33 percent said they believe Jews “always like to be at the head of things.”
• A surprisingly large number of Americans continue to believe that “Jews were responsible for the death of Christ.” Thirty-one percent (31%) of Americans agreed with that statement. One-quarter of Americans believe that Jews “still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.”