A recent survey study of 3,500 Americans sought to figure out which groups held anti-Semitic attitudes.
They measured anti-Semitic attitudes as agreement with three statements:
1. Jews are more loyal to Israel than America ("Loyal")
2. It is appropriate for opponents of Israel's policies and actions to boycott Jewish American owned businesses in their communities ("Boycott")
3. Jews in the United States have too much power ("Power")
In terms of politics and group differences, there were two big findings:
1. Anti-Semitic attitudes were more common on the Right.
2. Anti-Semitic attitudes were less common among Whites.
For some reason, Black and Hispanic Americans of each political persuasion tended towards greater levels of agreement with anti-Semitic statements.
The extent of this racial difference in anti-Semitic attitudes is more visible if Blacks and Hispanics are contrasted with White Progressives and White Alt-Rightists. Blacks and Hispanics had a more similar pattern of agreement with the Alt-Right than with Progressives.
This responding seems off, because apparently anti-Semitic attitudes were only endorsed by about 40% of the Alt-Right. I think this suggests there's something wrong with Alt-Right self-identification or the anti-Semitism measures.
Regardless, how can this pattern be explained?
The authors tested three plausible but incorrect explanations, shown below:
Another theory is that Black and Hispanic Americans hold anti-Semitic attitudes because they feel solidarity with Palestinians. To test this, the authors asked participants in which domains they believed Jews had too much power.
The most major domain was not Israel/Palestine, but News Media. Very few actually described only Israel/Palestine as the only domain in which Jews had too much power.
The association between being Black or Hispanic and holding anti-Semitic attitudes was not attributable to views about power in Israel/Palestine. It also wasn't attributable to disfavorable views towards Israel, Israeli politics, or Israeli culture.
Disfavoring Israel didn't predict agreement with anti-Semitic statements at all (B = 0.0025, SE = 0.038) and disfavoring Israeli culture predicted more anti-Semitic attitudes (0.16, 0.039), but the race effect remained after controlling for it. Oddly, disfavoring Israeli politics predicted less agreement with anti-Semitic statements, but this effect was so small that it's almost-certainly actually just a null at -0.087 (0.044)!
In fact, this should be put in a different context noted by the authors:
"We find higher rates of support for Israel and Israel's politics and government among Black and Hispanic respondents than among White respondents, a finding clearly inconsistent with the idea that Palestinian solidarity drives minority antisemitism."
The age differences in these measures were also peculiar. As the authors noted:
"Despite younger generations generally exhibiting more cosmopolitan and less prejudicial attitudes, we find that young Black and Hispanic adults express equal or higher levels of antisemitic attitudes than older Black and Hispanic adults; only young White adults express lower levels of antisemitism than their older counterparts. Young Black and Latino respondents answer this battery of antisemitism questions similarly to how young White alt-right respondents do."
One of the explanations the authors supposed could play a role is that Blacks and Hispanics might see themselves as victims and buy into anti-Semitic beliefs like people who see themselves as victims in other contexts. For example, they cited an earlier study from Greece, where people who reported seeing themselves as victims reported more anti-Semitic attitudes, they presumed because they felt competition towards Jews, whose actual victimhood was recognized after the Holocaust.
If you want to read the paper, contest the measures, learn more, or whatever else, here's a link to the paper: cambridge.org/core/journals/…
They measured anti-Semitic attitudes as agreement with three statements:
1. Jews are more loyal to Israel than America ("Loyal")
2. It is appropriate for opponents of Israel's policies and actions to boycott Jewish American owned businesses in their communities ("Boycott")
3. Jews in the United States have too much power ("Power")
In terms of politics and group differences, there were two big findings:
1. Anti-Semitic attitudes were more common on the Right.
2. Anti-Semitic attitudes were less common among Whites.
For some reason, Black and Hispanic Americans of each political persuasion tended towards greater levels of agreement with anti-Semitic statements.
The extent of this racial difference in anti-Semitic attitudes is more visible if Blacks and Hispanics are contrasted with White Progressives and White Alt-Rightists. Blacks and Hispanics had a more similar pattern of agreement with the Alt-Right than with Progressives.
This responding seems off, because apparently anti-Semitic attitudes were only endorsed by about 40% of the Alt-Right. I think this suggests there's something wrong with Alt-Right self-identification or the anti-Semitism measures.
Regardless, how can this pattern be explained?
The authors tested three plausible but incorrect explanations, shown below:
Another theory is that Black and Hispanic Americans hold anti-Semitic attitudes because they feel solidarity with Palestinians. To test this, the authors asked participants in which domains they believed Jews had too much power.
The most major domain was not Israel/Palestine, but News Media. Very few actually described only Israel/Palestine as the only domain in which Jews had too much power.
The association between being Black or Hispanic and holding anti-Semitic attitudes was not attributable to views about power in Israel/Palestine. It also wasn't attributable to disfavorable views towards Israel, Israeli politics, or Israeli culture.
Disfavoring Israel didn't predict agreement with anti-Semitic statements at all (B = 0.0025, SE = 0.038) and disfavoring Israeli culture predicted more anti-Semitic attitudes (0.16, 0.039), but the race effect remained after controlling for it. Oddly, disfavoring Israeli politics predicted less agreement with anti-Semitic statements, but this effect was so small that it's almost-certainly actually just a null at -0.087 (0.044)!
In fact, this should be put in a different context noted by the authors:
"We find higher rates of support for Israel and Israel's politics and government among Black and Hispanic respondents than among White respondents, a finding clearly inconsistent with the idea that Palestinian solidarity drives minority antisemitism."
The age differences in these measures were also peculiar. As the authors noted:
"Despite younger generations generally exhibiting more cosmopolitan and less prejudicial attitudes, we find that young Black and Hispanic adults express equal or higher levels of antisemitic attitudes than older Black and Hispanic adults; only young White adults express lower levels of antisemitism than their older counterparts. Young Black and Latino respondents answer this battery of antisemitism questions similarly to how young White alt-right respondents do."
One of the explanations the authors supposed could play a role is that Blacks and Hispanics might see themselves as victims and buy into anti-Semitic beliefs like people who see themselves as victims in other contexts. For example, they cited an earlier study from Greece, where people who reported seeing themselves as victims reported more anti-Semitic attitudes, they presumed because they felt competition towards Jews, whose actual victimhood was recognized after the Holocaust.
If you want to read the paper, contest the measures, learn more, or whatever else, here's a link to the paper: cambridge.org/core/journals/…
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