Antisemitism among Muslims in Germany

Abstract

Antisemitism is a long-standing, yet recently escalating threat to Jews and social cohesion in general. While there are intense public debates on Muslim antisemitism, there is very little systematic research based on large-scale, representative data. We fill this gap by analysing approximately 8,500 respondents included in the German Integrationsbarometer 2020 survey. Our results demonstrate that antisemitism is significantly higher among Muslims compared to Christian or religiously unaffiliated respondents, and among immigrants from Turkey and the Middle East & North Africa compared to other groups. About 35 per cent of Muslims strongly agreed with classical antisemitic statements. Deeper analyses reveal that antisemitism is particularly high among Muslims who are very religious or less educated. On the other hand, antisemitism is much lower among Muslims who are less religious or highly educated. We find only limited support for the impact of the time since migration on the antisemitism levels of Muslims. The findings are robust to various operationalizations of classical antisemitism and modelling choices. We discuss the theoretical as well as political implications of our findings.