11% Of American Jews Say They Don’t Feel Safe: Poll
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — In a survey conducted online among hundreds of respondents who identified as Jews, 27 percent of Europeans and 11 percent of Americans said they felt unsafe.
In the World Zionist Organization survey, which was conducted last year among a total of 1,361 respondents, 51 percent of those in Europe said that wearing Jewish symbols in public made them feel unsafe. In North America, that figure was 22 percent.
A press statement by WZO about the survey was conducted among Jews not living in Israel but it did not say how many of the 1,361 respondents were from Europe, North America and beyond. The statement also did not specify which countries in Europe the respondents on that continent came from.
Nearly a third of European respondents said they had experienced or witnessed an anti-Semitic event featuring vandalism. Compared to 11 percent worldwide.
Worldwide, most respondents who said they had experienced an anti-Semitic incident also indicated that they did not report it to police. Six percent said they did not report the alleged incident out of fear their security. Thirty percent said they did not want “to make a deal of it” and 42 percent said lacked faith in authorities to act on their complaint.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
