Star of David More Widely Recognized Than Twitter Icon

Image by thinkstock

By Anne Cohen February 16, 2013

Nearly nine in ten Americans, or 87% of people surveyed, correctly identified the Star of David as a Jewish symbol, a new poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and Press showed.

Image by thinkstock

The Twitter birdie, on the other hand, was recognized by 79% respondents to the poll as the social media company’s corporate logo.

These findings come from an updated version of the Pew Center’s regular News IQ Quiz, which seeks to identify the level of public knowledge about political, and popular issues using pictures, maps, graphics and symbols. This version of the study was conducted online January 18-24, 2013, among a random sample of 1,041 adults. A previous version of the quiz was conducted in October 2011.

The question about religious symbols asked respondents to choose between four symbols associated with various religions and identify the one associated with Judaism. Among the choices were the Crescent and Star of Islam, the Christian cross, and the Om traditionally associated with Hinduism.

In the October 2011, the religious symbols question focused on the same four symbols, but asked respondents to identify the one associated with Islam. Only 42% of respondents correctly clicked on the Crescent and Star.

At the low end of the spectrum, only 43% of respondents could distinguish Elizabeth Warren’s picture from those of Nancy Pelosi, Tammi Baldwin and Deb Fischer, and only half were able to identify Syria as a country highlighted on a map of the Middle East.

Two-thirds or more of respondents were able to correctly answer 7 out of 13 questions. The report adds that people who took the quiz answered 8.5 out of 13 on average, which comes to a score of 65% if “graded like a classroom test.”

How much do you know? Take the quiz here and find out.

Anne Cohen was the Forward’s deputy digital media editor. When she’s not looking for the secret Jewish history of Voodoo in New Orleans, or making lists about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she writes for The Assimilator. She graduated from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism with an M.S. magazine concentration in 2012.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

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

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO