Study: 10% Of Central, Eastern Europeans Don’t Want Jews As Citizens
Stubborn Hate: Decades after the Holocaust, many Poles hold strongly anti-Semitic views, a new poll shows. Image by getty images
(JTA) — More than 10 percent of Central and Eastern Europeans do not accept Jews as citizens of their countries, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.
The study surveyed residents of 18 countries and found that 80 percent of respondents would accept Jews as fellow citizens. The remainder was not sure or declined to answer.
However, less than half would accept Jews as family and fewer than three-quarters wanted them as neighbors.
The study interviewed 1,500 to 2,500 residents in each of the countries from June 2015 to July 2016.
Jews, however, were more accepted across the region than Muslims and Roma. Only 57 percent of respondents would accept Roma as citizens, while only 19 percent would accept them as family. Roughly two-thirds of the region would accept Muslims as citizens, while only 27 percent would accept them as family.
Some countries did not accept Jews as citizens at a rate far higher than the median, notably Armenia, where a third of respondents said Jews should not be citizens.
Several countries with large Jewish populations before the Holocaust also topped the average, including Lithuania, Romania, the Czech Republic and Poland.
The margin of error was 3.3 to 4.5 percent, depending on the country.
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