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New Jersey Catholic Paper Reports ‘minimal’ Anti-jewish Bias

April 6, 1965
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A poll on anti-Semitism among the readers of the Catholic Star Herald, a weekly published here by the Camden Roman Catholic Diocese, has found only a “minmal” residue of anti-Jewish prejudice, the paper reported today.

Based on 719 replies to questionnaires sent to 3,000 of the Star Herald’s subscribers, the survey showed that nearly 90 percent of the respondents would vote for a Jew as President of the United States if he were nominate by the political party to which they usually adhere, and about the same percentage approved of the Ecumenical Council statement exonerating Jews from any guilt in the death of Jesus. Only about nine percent felt that even Jews of Jesus’ time should be termed guilty.

While the overwhelming majority of those responding replied in a manner indicating they were free of anti-Jewish bias, some other strong feelings were shown by the fact that five persons not only refused to answer but mailed back their questionnaires “torn to shreds, “the newspaper reported. Another finding showed that public school graduates revealed more anti-Jewish feeling than graduates of Catholic parochial schools.

With regard to specific questions in the survey, 677 of the respondents said they do not avoid the company of Jews, 26 said they do, and 16 did not reply to the question. In reply to another question, 561 said they did not prefer non-Jewish neighbors, 120 said they did, and 33 gave no answer. Eighty-three percent of the respondents said that they had no distrust of Jews.

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