Half of Americans say antisemitism has increased in the U.S.

Linley SandersData Journalist
December 09, 2022, 7:37 PM GMT+0

Amid a reported rise in antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2021, half of Americans believe that antisemitism has increased in the last few years in the country.

Democrats (67%) are especially likely in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll to say that antisemitic incidents have risen in the last few years, compared to 44% of Republicans and 39% of Independents. Just 11% of Americans believe that antisemitic events are declining.

Prejudice against Jewish people is more often seen as something that happens elsewhere in the United States, rather than in Americans' own communities. Most Americans (58%) think antisemitism is at least a somewhat serious problem in the United States, with 25% calling it a very serious problem. By comparison, just 19% of Americans call it a problem in their local communities, and only 6% say the problem is very serious.

A majority of Americans (58%) say hate crimes in general (including racist, anti-religious, and homophobic attacks) in the United States have become much or somewhat more frequent over the past year compared to 10 years ago. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) say that Jewish people face a “great deal” or a "moderate amount" of discrimination, but more say this amount of discrimination is faced by each of the following groups of people: lesbian, gay, or bisexual people (67%), Black people (69%), transgender people (70%), and Muslim people (72%).

— Carl Bialik and Taylor Orth contributed to this article

See the toplines and crosstabs from the Economist/YouGov poll conducted on December 3 - 6, 2022 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens.

Methodology: Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to June 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (34% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.

Image: Getty Images (Alex Edelman)

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