Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Chairman, Gideon Falter, has this week written articles in the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph, explaining the results of our Antisemitism Barometer research, which were misrepresented by some who claimed that we were expecting almost a third of the UK’s 269,000 Jews to leave the country imminently. If you would like to voice your support for CAA’s work, please feel free to e-mail [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected], making sure that you include your postal address (indicating that you would prefer that it is not published).

We must resist the seduction of both complacency and fear

The following article was published in the Jewish News.

I have never understood why some people get used to antisemitism. There are people in our community who see nothing disturbing about dropping their children off at fortified schools, or passing through airport-style security to enter their synagogue. As antisemitic crime surges, they look perplexed and observe that nothing feels different to them because nothing has happened to them personally. They accept the risk of antisemitism as part of their everyday life, but fail to act as long as they themselves are not targeted.

Our charity seeks to educate against antisemitism whilst simultaneously working to inflict criminal, professional and reputational sanctions upon antisemites. To succeed, we must pinpoint the problem, and that is why the accuracy of our research is crucial: if it contains mistakes, we could find ourselves fighting the wrong battles.

Last week, Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) published our Antisemitism Barometer research. Conducted over three years, it included three specially-commissioned YouGov polls of the British population’s attitudes towards Jews, and two separate CAA polls of British Jews, the data from which was weighted by a former Associate Director at YouGov. Our rigorous research showed that antisemitic prejudice was actually declining, but that British Jews were becoming increasingly fearful with almost one in three having asked themselves whether to leave the UK. They do not need to be packing their bags for the question to be significant. When our polling asked British Jews to point a finger of blame, more than half accused the Crown Prosecution Service for failing to prosecute all but a handful of antisemitic crimes annually, and the Labour Party was attacked by 4 in 5 of us for its newfound mastery of the art of whitewashing antisemitism.

Just when we should be celebrating a fall in prejudice against Jews, we find ourselves grappling with rising fear of surging antisemitic crime and the acceptance by swathes of the electorate of a political party riddled with antisemites. Our findings sparked national debate, but the communal debate was no less interesting because of the divisions that it exposed.

Some complained that they had never been a victim of antisemitism, and so it could not possibly be true, accusing us of exaggeration. Others accused us of somehow suppressing the voices of those who are making plans to leave.

Perhaps in this world of social media bubbles and fake news, we are all losing the ability to listen to the views of others. British Jews’ experiences will vary according to their denomination and whether they wear visible signs of their Judaism. They vary by neighbourhood, age, and gender. Those with children may feel differently about the future to those without. As a community, we must accept these variations and try to understand the whole picture, not just our personal part of it.

The facts are in our research and we neither played them up nor down. They tell us that Britain is one of the best places in the world in which to be Jewish, but we can also see that our comfort in this country is increasingly at risk. There is no contradiction in recognising how lucky we are, whilst fighting the threats that assail us. Our research tells us that however satisfied we may be with our laws and the majority of our politicians, it is imperative that we focus our attention on the failures to prosecute, and antisemitism in the Labour Party. Future generations will not forgive us if we enjoyed the golden era for British Jews but watched complacently as it ended.

Our dedication to ensuring CAA hate stats add up

The following article was published in the Jewish Chronicle.

In last week’s JC, sociology researcher Keith Kahn-Harris welcomed Campaign Against Antisemitism’s latest research into antisemitism in the UK, and British Jews’ responses to it, but he raised questions about our charity’s approach to the answers which I am happy to answer.

Our Antisemitism Barometer research is the product of three years’ work. We undertook five polls and analysed 10,567 responses. We commissioned leading pollsters YouGov to survey attitudes towards Jews amongst British people in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Separately, we worked with partners in the Jewish community to poll British Jews’ responses to antisemitism in 2016 and 2017, hiring a former Associate Director at YouGov to ensure that our results accurately represented the national Jewish community. As Dr Kahn-Harris recognised, “The report’s findings need to be considered seriously.”

Our charity seeks to educate against antisemitism whilst simultaneously working to inflict criminal, professional and reputational sanctions upon antisemites. To succeed, we must pinpoint the problem, and that is why the accuracy of our research is crucial: if it contains mistakes, we could find ourselves fighting the wrong battles.

We found that British people are becoming less antisemitic. Today, 36% hold at least one antisemitic prejudice, compared with 45% in 2015. Only 54% say that they have ever met a Jew. We pinpointed the worst regions, age groups, political persuasions and more. Amongst Jews, we found that in the past two years, nearly one in three has considered moving abroad due to antisemitism. That does not mean they are busy packing their suitcases, but Jews are asking themselves alarming questions about their future here, and that is significant. 39% of us are concealing our religion in public. 64% of us think the authorities do too little to punish antisemitism, and 52% think that the Crown Prosecution Service does too little. 76% say political developments have caused more antisemitism and 83% say Labour is harbouring antisemites. We use this information to target our work, including drawing up recommendations that we are discussing with the Government.

Dr Kahn-Harris asks questions about our research, focusing on the speed of our analysis and what he called our lack of “collegiality”. He might just as well have asked us by e-mail as in a newspaper column.

It is hard to characterise a three-year study as hasty. Rather than being disconcerted by the speed of our analysis, he should understand that Campaign Against Antisemitism operates like a startup. Instead of salaried 9-5 functionaries, we are powered by dedicated unpaid volunteers working all hours when needed. By the time we had concluded our 2017 polling, we had already built the data models to analyse it and discussed previous years’ findings. All that remained was to analyse the latest results, and how they compared to what we had found previously.

I suspect that Dr Kahn-Harris most objects to what he perceives as our lack of “collegiality”. He explains that we are rarely to be seen at conferences or at communal symposia, and he blames us. The fact is that Campaign Against Antisemitism is excluded from the Jewish community’s cosy club of established bodies, but we will always be willing to collaborate constructively against antisemitism. Next time there is a conference, if he invites us, we will be delighted to come.

CAA polling was accurate and rigorous, but disturbing

The following article was published in the Jewish Telegraph.

Last week’s Jewish Telegraph led with a headline attacking a poll conducted by Campaign Against Antisemitism, claiming that it had been “panned” by “Jewish academics”. Readers would have had to turn to page 23 to find that out that was not the case.

In fact, none of the academics cited, or this paper itself, criticised the polling, and in any case, as specialists in history, politics and management, the academics asked to comment were hardly experts in statistics. They did not criticise the polling but did express dismay, even disbelief, that so many British Jews are now having second thoughts about their future in this country.

The journalism was uncharacteristically unfair. Most editors would not admit that, so I am grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight.

In five polls over three years, we asked what British people think about Jews, and what British Jews think about antisemitism. We asked expert pollsters, YouGov, to poll the British population’s attitudes towards Jews in 2015, 2016 and 2017. In separate polling, we worked with Jewish community bodies to poll a nationally representative sample of British Jews about antisemitism in 2016 and 2017, hiring a former Associate Director at YouGov to review our work. We analysed 10,567 responses over three years.

What we found was both harrowing and uplifting.

First, the good news: British people have begun to shun antisemitism. In 2015, YouGov found that 45% of British adults held at least one antisemitic stereotype, but that fell to 39% in 2016, and 36% in 2017. We can be grateful that antisemitism is falling in Britain even as it soars on the Continent. Of the one third of British people who hold some prejudice against Jews, there are degrees of severity, which our research helps us to pinpoint. We now know, for example, which regions we need to target, which age groups, and which supporters of political parties.

Now the bad news: British Jews are increasingly fearful, with almost 1 in 3 saying that they have considered leaving Britain in the past two years. Last week’s coverage absurdly suggested that we now expect a third of the UK’s 269,000 Jews to pack their bags. However, it is significant that British Jews are increasingly considering this option. Delving into the responses further, we find that 76% of British Jews say that political events caused antisemitism to rise, and 83% of us feel that the Labour Party is harbouring antisemites. 37% of us have been concealing our Judaism in public and merely 39% felt confident that an antisemitic crime against them would be prosecuted. 52% say the Crown Prosecution Service does too little. Our community is hugely concerned about Islamism, the far-left, and antisemitism disguised as discourse about Israel. Perhaps none of this is surprising, but it is important to know, and important to be able to demonstrate it to the Government.

Our research provides a roadmap that Campaign Against Antisemitism will use to fight antisemitism. Campaign Against Antisemitism is a charity that trains unpaid volunteers (including me) to work in highly-effective teams with backup from eminent lawyers to ensure that antisemites pay a crippling criminal, professional and reputational cost for their hatred. Simultaneously, we interrupt the flow of antisemitic ideology through highly-targeted outreach and education work. Anybody can join us in our fight against antisemitism by visiting www.antisemitism.org/act.

Our rigorous research has shown that we are starting to turn the tide, but we still have a great deal to do.