A national survey found attitudes regarding antisemitism differ starkly between Republicans and Democrats in the U.S., according to a report from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA).
Researchers from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut surveyed 1,614 U.S. adults over the phone from December 8th to December 12th, amid a rise in antisemitic
incidents. It also comes after a weeks-long antisemitic rant by rapper Kanye West.
Asked whether antisemitism is a growing threat to Jewish Americans, only a slight margin of overall respondents – 51 percent – answered in the affirmative.
However, there was a clear divide between those who identified as Democrats, in which 73 percent said antisemitism is a growing threat, and Republicans, of which only 34 percent agreed with the statement.
Similarly, 83 percent of Democrats said antisemitism is a “serious” or “somewhat serious” threat to American Jews, while only 44 percent of Republicans agreed with those assessments, according to JTA.
The majority of respondents overall – 60 percent – agreed that antisemitism is a serious problem.
The percentages have dipped slightly from previous years.
In August 2019, after a year of deadly attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, California, 48 percent of Republicans respondent that antisemitism was a serious problem, while 78 percent of Democrats did.
Two years earlier, in March 2017, the same pollsters asked the question after a series of bomb threats against Jewish institution, and 53 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats agreed with the statement.