Survey: one quarter of British Jews have considered leaving due to anti-Semitism

Marcy Oster

(JTA) — Nearly half of Britons hold an anti-Semitic view and one quarter of British Jews have considered leaving because of rising anti-Semitism, two new surveys found.

The surveys were released together on Wednesday by Britain’s Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, or CAA.

The survey carried out by YouGov for the CAA also found that one in four Britons believe that 1 in 4 people believe that “Jews chase money more than other British people;” one in five Britons believe that “Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people;” and 1 in 6 people believe that “Jews think they are better than other people” and that “Jews have too much power in the media.”

A nationally-representative sample of 3,411 British adults was polled by YouGov between Dec. 21, 2014 and Jan. 6, 2015 for the survey.

A second CAA survey found that 58 percent of British Jews believe Jews may have no long-term future in Europe and that over half of British Jews say that they have witnessed more anti-Semitism in the past two years than they have witnessed before.  The CAA survey also found that 45 percent of British Jews questioned feel their family is threatened by Islamist extremism.

The CAA survey was completed by 2,230 Jewish people who reside in Great Britain and received a link to the online survey. Several methods were used to ensure a wide and varied sample, according to the CAA.

The report was released less than a week after four men were killed in a Paris kosher supermarket by an Islamic extremist.

“The results of our survey are a shocking wakeup call straight after the atrocities in Paris. Britain is at a tipping point: unless anti-Semitism is met with zero tolerance, it will grow and British Jews will increasingly question their place in their own country,” Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism said in a statement.

Some 269,000 Jewish people live in Britain, and equal 0.4 percent of the population.