The survey was overseen by First International Resources and conducted by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research. It included telephone and in-person surveys conducted in 96 languages between July 2013 and February 2014. At least 500 adults were interviewed in each of the countries surveyed. The margin of error is 4.4 percent in countries with 500 interviews and 3.2 percent in countries with 1,000 interviews.
The study was funded by New York philanthropist Leonard Stern; the ADL declined to say how much it cost.
The survey also questioned respondents about their attitudes toward Israel. Outside the Middle East, Israel’s favorable rating was 37 percent, compared to 26 percent unfavorable. Within the Middle East, Israel’s unfavorable rating rose to 84 percent. The only other region where Israel’s unfavorable rating outweighed its favorable was Asia: 30 percent unfavorable, compared to 26 percent favorably.
Asked how many Jews they believe there are worldwide, more than half of the respondents significantly overestimated the number. Some 30 percent said Jews comprise between 1 and 10 percent of the world’s population, 18 percent said the figure was larger than 10 percent, and 9 percent said more than 20 percent of all people are Jewish. The actual figure is 0.19 percent of the world’s population, according to the ADL.
After the Palestinian-populated territories, the most anti-Semitic places were Iraq, where 92 percent harbor anti-Semitic views; Yemen at 88 percent; Algeria and Libya at 87 percent; Tunisia at 86 percent; Kuwait at 82 percent; and Bahrain and Jordan at 81 percent.
Israel was not included in the survey.
“It is very evident that the Middle East conflict matters with regard to anti-Semitism,” Foxman said. “It just is not clear whether the Middle East conflict is the cause of or the excuse for anti-Semitism. There is no statistical data at this moment to support causality.”
After Laos, anti-Semitism was lowest in the Philippines at 3 percent; Sweden at 4 percent; the Netherlands at 5 percent; Vietnam at 6 percent; the United Kingdom at 8 percent, the United States and Denmark at 9 percent; Tanzania at 12 percent; and Thailand at 13 percent.
In Western Europe, the most anti-Semitic countries were Greece (69 percent) and France (37 percent). In Eastern Europe, Poland (45 percent) and Bulgaria (44 percent) topped the list, and the Czech Republic was the least anti-Semitic, at 13 percent.
In the Americas, Panama (52 percent) and the Dominican Republic (41 percent) ranked as most anti-Semitic. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Senegal was the most anti-Semitic, at 56 percent. The least were Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania, all at between 16 and 12 percent.
The most commonly held stereotype among the ADL’s list of 11 statements was that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country – a view held by 41 percent of respondents. More than one-third agreed with the statements that Jews have too much power in the business world and in international financial markets, that Jews think they are better than other people and that Jews don’t care what happens to anyone but their own kind.
(JTA)