In the past couple of years, there has been a
spate of
articles in the media painting a grim picture on Christians in Israel, making it sound like most of them are experiencing discrimination and attacks like being spit upon by Jews.
A new survey of Israel's Christians shows that in at least some ways, Christians in Israel are more comfortable than Jews - in America.
The
Rossing Center asked Christians in Israel whether they felt comfortable wearing visible religious symbols in public. 58.5% said they did, 20.5% said they didn't.
A similar question by the
American Jewish Committee of Jews in America found that 39% of Jews felt safe in American displaying such symbols, and 42% said they were unsafe.
The Rossing Center reported that the vast majority, 88.3%, of Christians in Israel reported no experiences of harassment due to their Christian identity.
The AJC found that In all, 33% of American Jews say they were a target of an antisemitic incident whether a physical attack, a remark in person, antisemitic vandalism or messaging, antisemitic remark or post online or through social media, or any other form of antisemitism—in the previous 12 months.
Once again, the media makes up a story by inflating the importance of a few reprehensible incidents, they back them up by finding antisemitic Christian leaders to say that things are horrendous, and they widely publish the story. Yet surveys show that Christians in Israel are not under attack and most of them feel perfectly safe among Jews. When you compare this with the US Jewish minority, knowing that most Jews are safe in the US, you can see that the stories were sensationalist and did not reflect the relative importance of the issue.
Obviously if 11% of Christians in Israel have been harassed, that is something that has to be addressed, but it is a pretty low number for any minority in any country - US included.
(h/t Irene)