The Return of Religious Anti-Semitism? The Evidence from World Values Survey Data

Abstract

Background: This paper addresses the return of religious Anti-Semitism by a multivariate analysis of global opinion data from 28 countries. Methods: For the lack of any available alternative, we used the World Values Survey (WVS) Anti-Semitism study item: rejection of Jewish neighbours. It is closely correlated with the recent ADL-100 Index of Anti-Semitism for more than 100 countries. To test the combined effects of religion and background variables like gender, age, education, income and life satisfaction on Anti-Semitism, we applied the full range of multivariate analysis including promax factor analysis and multiple OLS regression. Results: Although religion as such still seems to be connected with the phenomenon of Anti-Semitism, intervening variables such as restrictive attitudes on gender and the religion-state relationship play an important role. Western Evangelical and Oriental Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism are performing badly on this account, and there is also a clear global North-South divide for these phenomena. Conclusions: Challenging patriarchic gender ideologies and fundamentalist conceptions of the relationship between religion and state, which are important drivers of Anti-Semitism, will be an important task in the future. Multiculturalism must be aware of prejudice, patriarchy and religious fundamentalism in the global South.