Annual Assessments

2019 Annual Assessment

Global Trends and Policy Recommendations
Integrated Anti-Semitism Index: Europe and the US
Special Chapters: Jewish Creativity and Cultural Outputs

PROJECT HEAD

Shmuel Rosner

Contributors

Avinoam Bar-Yosef, Dan Feferman, Shlomo Fischer Avi Gil, Inbal Hakman, Michael Herzog, Dov Maimon, Gitit Paz-Levi, Steven Popper, Uzi Rebhun, John Ruskay, Noah Slepkov, Adar Schiber, Rami Tal, Shalom Salomon Wald

EDITOR

Barry Geltman

2019 Annual Assessment

2019 Annual Assessment

This question looks directly at the sense of attachment that Jews around the world experience vis-a-vis Israel. The question appears on several surveys, though in different wordings. In the AJC surveys from 2000 to 2005, the term “close” was used. Other surveys used the term “emotional attachment.”

US Jewry

The data on sense of closeness to Israel in the AJC surveys refer to the years 2000-2005 only. For these years, we can see a slight increase in the feeling of closeness, though the degree is insignificant (from 74.3 percent in 2000 to 76 percent in 2005). The age of the respondents, and their identification with a religious stream, significantly affect the feeling of closeness. Older age cohorts and Orthodox Jews reported a stronger sense of closeness than younger age cohorts and non-Orthodox respondents.

The 2013 Pew survey, A Portrait of Jewish Americans, used a slightly-different wording from the question found in the AJC survey: respondents were asked how “emotionally attached” they are to Israel. Over 60 percent responded that they felt attached (30 percent very attached, 39 percent somewhat attached), while 31 percent said they were not very, or not at all, attached to Israel. A 2018 J Street survey also asked about emotional attachment to Israel. Thirty-two percent of respondents reported feeling very emotionally attached to Israel, 33 percent said they were somewhat attached, 23 percent said they were not very attached, and 12 percent reported no Israel attachment at all. being at all.

European Jewry

Respondents of the FRA surveys conducted in Europe were asked about their attachment levels to their countries of origin, their regions of origin, to Europe in general, and to Israel. The 2019 survey found that 69 percent of European Jews feel strongly attached to Israel.3 Like other surveys, a significant relationship was found between respondent age and sense of attachment, with 62 percent of young adults ages 16-34 attesting to a strong or very strong attachment to Israel, versus 69 percent for the 35-59 age group, and 72 percent for those 60 and over.

Canadian Jewry

Most of the Canadian survey participants
(79 percent) reported being very attached
(48 percent) or somewhat attached (31 percent) to Israel. The Canadian study looked at the basis of the respondents’ sense of attachment to Israel – religious, ethnic, cultural, a combination of the three, or other. The responses were broken down as follows:
Table 1: Connection to Israel by Jewish Identity (Canada)

 

Canadian Total By Religion By Ancestry/Descent By Culture All Three Other American Jews (PEW)
Very attached 48 60 32 36 61 47 30
Somewhat attached 31 25 31 39 28 32 39
Not very attached 11 7 18 14 8 13 22
Not at all attached 8 7 17 11 3 7 9

Australian Jewry

The Gen08 survey looked at the sense of emotional attachment to Israel; 75 percent of the respondents reported a very strong or strong attachment.

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