One in four Europeans today hold anti-Semitic views
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, manifestations of state-supported anti-Semitism disappeared in Europe, but it was replaced by the so-called political anti-Semitism — the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric by politicians to win the sympathy of voters.
Despite only few instances of physical violence against Jews and acts of vandalism, general sentiment in Europe, as a result of insufficient counteraction to political anti-Semitism, paints a threatening picture: one in four Europeans today hold anti-Semitic views. This data is provided by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in its report Choosing Antisemitism: Instrumentalization and Tolerance of Antisemitism in Contemporary European Politics.
ADL calls the significant increase in anti-Semitic sentiment in the UK in 2015–2020 as the most typical example of political anti-Semitism. On the eve of the elections at the end of 2019, the number of British Jews who were going to leave the country reached 47%, or about 90,000 people.
A similar surge in anti-Semitic sentiments was also noted in Poland on the eve of the 2019 presidential elections, when polls showed anti-Semitic sentiments among 48% of the population — the highest rate in Europe.
The exact opposite was the situation in Ukraine, where anti-Semitic rhetoric was not used in the 2019 elections. At the same time, along with the political manifestation of anti-Semitism, the ADL calls the trivialization of the Holocaust as another manifestation of the anti-Semitism today. The Anti-Defamation League also considers the glorification of some heroes in the struggle for independence, in isolation from their participation in the extermination of Jews, as a veiled manifestation of anti-Semitism.
