Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

40% More Americans Hold Anti-Semitic Views: ADL Poll

(JTA) — The number of Americans expressing anti-Semitic views rose by 40% since 2015 — although most Americans are worried about violence against Jews, according to polls by the Anti-Defamation League.

Fourteen percent of Americans expressed anti-Semitic attitudes, a sharp increase from 10% in 2015, according to the data.

However, 52 percent of respondents said they were concerned about anti-Semitic violence and an even higher proportion, 76 percent, were worried about violence against Muslims, the ADL found.

Forty-seven percent of respondents said there was more anti-Semitism during the 2016 presidential campaign than in previous times. Nearly half of  Americans, 49 percent, said Donald Trump had not done enough to discourage anti-Jewish sentiments as a candidate, while 39 percent said he had.

The polls found that a higher proportion of Muslim Americans, 34 percent, held anti-Semitic views than the general population. The polls also found that half of Muslim Americans hold a favorable view of Israel and most Muslim Americans, 89 percent, were worried about violence against them and Islamic institutions.

“The good news in this research is that today a large majority of Americans do not subscribe to common anti-Semitic stereotypes,” Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s national director, said in a statement.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.