1 in 10 Italians is Anti-semitic, Says Poll Published in Magazine

One in 10 Italians holds anti-Semitic views and believes that the Holocaust never happened, according to a new public opinion survey.

The survey, carried out by the Demoskopea polling organization and to be published Monday in the news weekly L’Espresso, grabbed headlines in the Italian media and mixed reactions from Italian Jewish leaders.

“What is most frightening in Italy and Europe are not the swastikas and Skinhead violence, but the silence of the people who look on,” said Tullia Zevi, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.

“Behind the open hostility there is a passivity and a vast submerged antipathy, whose limits are impalpable,” she said.

“The most worrisome phenomenon emerging from this survey is the vast grey area of anti-Jewish stereotypes which stands behind open anti-Semitism,” she said.

The survey of 1,064 people, from all walks of life between the ages of 14 and 79, showed that 10.5 percent agreed with the statement that “Jews are not nice and do not inspire faith.” About the same percent said that Italy’s 30,000 Jews should leave the country.

Some 10.5 percent of those interviewed would try to dissuade a son or daughter from marrying a Jew.

Some 9.2 percent said that “today in Italy there is too much talk about the extermination of the Jews during World War II.” More than 9 percent said the Holocaust never happened.

And 34 percent said that Italian Jews “are not real Italians.”

Some 56 percent of those interviewed said they believed that “Jews have a special relationship with money” and 42 percent said that “they should stop posing as victims of the Holocaust.”

Two-thirds of those interviewed said that “Jews have a different mentality and way of life than other Italians.”

“It’s a mass of stereotypes,” Rome’s Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff commented in the Rome daily Il Messaggero. Italians are much more intelligent than they appear in certain interviews. And I have faith in this people.”

“I don’t have to show that we are real Italians, I don’t have to retell the story of the struggles we have conducted together, and of the innumerable expressions of esteem and affection which I have always had from representatives of Italian institutions, from President (Oscar Luigi) Scalfaro on down, and from ordinary Italians,” the rabbi said.

“No, I am not afraid of that 10 percent who wants to kick the Jews out. We Jews are not going to pack our bags. That percentage is physical reality in a democracy. They are the usual extremists, linked to the extreme right wing,” he said.