In the 1930s and 1940s, antisemitism was mainstream. A survey in 1938, after Kritallnacht, found 53% of Americans blamed European Jews for their Nazi persecution and 60% held negative views about Jews (e.g., "greedy," "pushy," "dishonest").
After Pearl Harbor, Jews were seen as the "greatest threat" to U.S. welfare by 40-50% of Americans - more than any other group including Japanese or Germans!
In the 1940s, even after the Holocaust, 58% of Americans had very negative attitudes towards Jews.
Things slowly became better. In the 1950s, between 30-40% of Americans believed standard antisemitic tropes. That went down to the 22-28% range in the 1960s, and continued to go down steadily until 2019, when it hit an all-time low of 11% of Americans agreeing with several antisemitic stereotypes.
But between 2019 and 2024, we have rocketed back up to 1960s levels.
As a reminder, in the 1960s, Jews were routinely excluded from clubs, from many law firms, and - unofficially - from many suburban housing complexes and resort hotels. Companies also adhered to the Arab boycott which demanded no Jews in top positions of companies they would deal with.
US antisemitism is now back to the levels it was at then.
It gets worse.
In the 1960s, 20% of young people felt that Jews had "too much power." That went down to 10% in 2018.
In 2023 it was at 37%, nearly quadrupling in only five years.
Unlike previous decades, today's youth - as well as college educated students - are more likely to be antisemitic than their parents.
Also, this is the first time since the 1930s that antisemitism was becoming mainstream among both the political Left and the Right.
The time to sound the alarm is now. This is huge change in both amount and direction for antisemitism in America, and there is precious little being done to combat it at a root level.
(1940s and 1950s data from Gallup/Roper polls, since the 1960s from the ADL. The 1980s numbers were copied from the 1970s; they had no survey then.)
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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