In today's unsettling news, one in four adults worldwide harbors disturbingly anti-Semitic views.
This from a new survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The survey asked 53,100 adults in 102 countries — a group accounting for 88 percent of the world’s adult population — whether or not they agreed with traditionally anti-Semitic statements.
Statements like: "Jews have too much power over the media," "Jews only care about their own kind" and "Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars."
The statement the most people agreed with was, "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to (this country/the country they live in)."
The survey calculated how many people agreed with at least six of 11 such statements, and 26 percent of people did.
It is perhaps not surprising that the highest concentration of anti-Semitic attitudes was found in the Middle East and North Africa — 93 percent in the West Bank and Gaza; 92 percent inIraq; 88 in Yemen and 87 in Algeria.
People in Oceania, the Americas and Asia were far less likely to be anti-Semitic. Less than 1 percent of people in Laos hold such views, which was the lowest of anywhere. The US came in at 9 percent.
Greece was the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, at 69 percent, and Sweden the least, at 4 percent. Here's a map, courtesy of the Anti-Defamation League, that shows the global layout of anti-Semitic attitudes (the lower the percentage, the lower the calculated anti-Semitism):
Another pretty shocking finding from the survey is that only about 50 percent of people have heard of the Holocaust. Crazy.
It is important to note that many African countries were left out of the survey.
It is also important to note, which few of the articles covering this survey have done, that the Anti-Defamation League is a Jewish NGO and its critics include Noam Chomsky, who has said he thinks the group exists purely to push Israeli policy.
Still, the survey covered a huge spread and its results are definitely disturbing. What to do?
Well, if you're Jewish, it might be time to go traveling abroad. The survey also found that three-quarters of people have never even met a Jew — unsurprisingly, the areas where people said this correlate to highly anti-Semitic areas.
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