Targets of Out-Group Hostility in the Contemporary United States: Individual- and Community-Level Factors Associated with the Experience of Anti-Semitism Among American Jews

Abstract

While anti-Semitism has plagued American society, as well as many others, for centuries, anti-Semitism tends to be overshadowed in the social sciences by what are seen as more common forms of prejudice, discrimination, and racism. This tends to reinforce the erroneous view that anti-Semitism is not a significant social problem in the US today. The study of anti-Semitism must incorporate its uniqueness as a social problem and as a form of racism, prejudice, and discrimination, most vividly demonstrated in the Holocaust, and must take into consideration its history as well as its particular characteristics. This study seeks to answer the following primary research question: How do individual- and community-level factors relate to the perception or experience of anti-Semitism by Jews? This study focuses upon the prevalence and nature of anti-Semitism as it exists in the contemporary United States. Specifically, this research consists of regression analysis and a hierarchical linear model of the predictors of the experience of anti-Semitism on the individual as well as the community level. Data sources for this research consist of the 2000–2001 administration of the National Jewish Population Survey and a number of community studies on the Jewish population. These findings indicated that a number of individual- and community-level predictors significantly influence the experience of anti-Semitism.