(JTA) — Nearly half of Britons hold an anti-Semitic view and one quarter of British Jews have considered leaving because of rising anti-Semitism, two new surveys found.
The surveys were released together on Wednesday by Britain’s Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, or CAA. The reports came out less than a week after four Jewish men were killed in a Paris kosher supermarket by an Islamic extremist.
One CAA survey found that 58 percent of British Jews believe that Jews may have no long-term future in Europe and that over half of British Jews say that they have witnessed more anti-Semitism in the past two years than ever. The CAA survey also found that 45 percent of the British Jews surveyed feel their family is threatened by Islamist extremism.
Some 2,230 British Jews were given a link to complete the online survey. Several methods were used to ensure a wide and varied sample, according to the CAA.
“The results of our survey are a shocking wakeup call straight after the atrocities in Paris,” Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, said in a statement. “Britain is at a tipping point: unless anti-Semitism is met with zero tolerance, it will grow and British Jews will increasingly question their place in their own country.”
Along with showing that nearly half of Britons hold an anti-Semitic view, the other survey carried out by YouGov for the CAA also found that one in four Britons believe that “Jews chase money more than other British people” and one in five believes that “Jews’ loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people.”
YouGov polled a nationally representative sample of 3,411 British adults between Dec. 21 and Jan. 6.
Some 269,000 Jews live in Britain and equal 0.4 percent of the population.
