September 5, 2012

BRUSSELS (JTA) — The European Union has launched an online survey into how Jews experience anti-Semitism in nine member states.

Results will be published in an EU report next year, Henry Nickels of the European Union for Fundamental Rights Agency said on Tuesday at a conference in Brussels.

His Vienna-based inter-governmental body and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research – an independent organization from London – have commissioned the British market research company Ipsos MORI to conduct the survey.

It “investigates first-hand examples of anti-Semitic harassment and violence as well as the extent to which Jews feel safe in Europe,” a statement by the institute said. 

To participate, respondents must be older than 16 and residing in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Sweden or the United Kingdom. Nickels announced the survey at a conference organized by the European Jewish Parliament.

“This type of robust evidence will assist EU institutions in taking measures that will ensure that the rights of the Jewish people are fully protected,” Ioannis Dimitrakopoulus of the Fundamental Rights Agency said.

Joel Rubinfeld, co-chair of the European Jewish parliament, told JTA the situation in Hungary is particularly worrisome, “because we are seeing signs that official institutions there are condoning anti-Semitism.”

Also speaking at the conference was Laszlo Banay, chief advisor at the Budapest municipality and a member of the European Jewish Parliament.

He said the right-wing Hungarian political party Jobbik has two homepages on the internet: “One official page, and another unofficial and openly anti-Semitic one which operates from the U.S.” Hungarian authorities are not prosecuting the website’s operators for hate speech even thought their identities are known, he said.
 

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