Different Antisemitisms: On Three Distinct Forms of Antisemitism in C | Page 19
Europe. Why these differences? Perhaps an explanation can be found in the fact that Sweden
until quite recently has been, culturally and religiously, a very homogeneous society, whereas
the UK has long been a multicultural society where different minorities live in accordance
with their own customs and traditions.
The different patterns concerning Jews in Sweden and the UK might be interpreted as
expressions of assimilation, as opposed to integration. The Swedish data convey a picture that
indicates that Jews in Sweden are subjected to a situation that triggers assimilation, whereas
the British data show a picture that might be interpreted as indicating that the Jewish
population there benefits from a condition that allows for integration.
The impact of the Israel – Arab conflict: Israel-derived antisemitism.
A puzzling question is the high level of avoiding displaying one’s Jewish identity among Jews
in Sweden, where classic antisemitic attitudes are almost absent in the general population, as
compared to the relatively lower level of avoidance in Hungary, where antisemitic stereotypes
are much more frequent than anywhere else in the investigated EU-countries.
If the prevalence of classic antisemitic attitudes in the population cannot account for
these differences, then one needs to ask what else could explain it? Could it for instance have
anything to do with the impact of the Israel-Arab conflict in their respective countries? Thus
we ask our Jewish respondents to what extent the Israeli-Arab conflict impacts on how safe
they feel as a Jew in the country they live in. The answers are presented in Figure 19:
The FRA-survey: To what extent does the Israeli-Arab conflict impact on
how safe you feel as a Jewish person in your country? (n=5.846)
100
90
80
24
A fair amount
17
A great deal
70
60
Percent
43
50
40
30
69
38
27
27
73
30
20
31
10
28
34
31
12
8
Hungary
Latvia
0
Belgium
France
Italy
Germany SWEDEN
19
32
UK