Why Do People Discriminate against Jews? Why Do People Discriminate against Jews? JONATHAN FOX AND LEV TOPOR 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2021 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fox, Jonathan, 1968– author. | Topor, Lev, author. Title: Why do people discriminate against Jews? / Jonathan Fox, Lev Topor. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020058616 (print) | LCCN 2020058617 (ebook) | ISBN 9780197580349 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197580356 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197580370 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Antisemitism. | Religious discrimination. | Conspiracy theories | Zionism. Classification: LCC DS 145 .F683 2021 (print) | LCC DS 145 (ebook) | DDC 305.892/4—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058616 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020058617 DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197580349.001.0001 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America Contents Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction 1 2. Patterns of Discrimination 24 3. Religious Anti-S emitism 64 4. Anti- Zionism and Anti-I srael Behavior and Sentiment 91 5. Conspiracy Theories 115 6. The British Example 142 7. Conclusions 164 Appendix A: Multivariate Analyses and Technical Details 189 Notes 207 Bibliography 223 Index 237 Acknowledgments We would like to thank all of those who helped with this project, from the data-collection stage through the writing. We are grateful to Matthias Basedau, Daniel Philpott, Jocelyne Cesari, Lene Kuhle, Yasemin Akbabba, Chris Bader, Roger Finke, Jeff Haynes, Patrick James, Shmuel Sandler, Ariel Zellman, Torkel Brekke, Tom Konzack, Dane Mataic, Jonathan Rynhold, Baruch Susser, and Ariel Zellman, as well as the anonymous reviewers, for their advice and comments at various points in the project. Thanks to the research assistants for round 3 of the project, including Sherrie Feigelson, Mora Deitch, Tanya Haykin, and Eytan Meir. We also thank the Israel Science Foundation (Grant 23/14), The German- Israel Foundation (Grant 1291-119.4/2015), and the John Templeton Foundation for funding this project, as well as the Association of Religion Data Archives for their help with the data. The opinions expressed in this study are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of any of the funders. 1 Introduction The question of why people discriminate against Jews is an age-o ld question. It is a seemingly simple question, but there has been considerable disagreement on the answer. This is not surprising because the causes of discrimination against any minority, religious or otherwise, are complex and often crosscutting. Social scientists have long disagreed over the root causes of the phenomenon, and dis- crimination against Jews is certainly no exception. The case of discrimination against Jews is further complicated by the fact that it is a controversial polit- ical issue. This study seeks to focus on the academic aspect of the controversy. That is, we seek to avoid normative issues and instead focus on empirics. We ask empiri- cally testable questions about what causes discrimination against Jews. We draw on several types of academic literatures to inform us on both what questions we should ask and how to understand our empirical findings. More specifically, this study uses new data to address this question and to ex- amine the causes of discrimination against Jewish minorities in 76 countries between 1990 and 2014. In a small number of countries, including Barbados, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Panama, and Suriname, we find no discrimination either by governments or society. This is important because the question of what causes discrimination also requires an explanation for situations where no dis- crimination is present. In the other 71 countries, at least some discrimination is present. Often this discrimination against Jews is quite substantial. Thus there is a great amount of variation across countries in how much discrimination is pre- sent against Jews. This makes the question of the causes of this discrimination pertinent. That is, as discrimination against Jews differs from country to country, we need to ask why there are high levels of discrimination in countries like Greece, Russia, and Turkey, on one hand, and none in Barbados, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Panama, and Suriname, on the other. This question is also pertinent because levels of discrimination against Jews are rising. Recent country-l evel examinations in the United States and Europe find that levels of incidents of harassment and attacks on Jews have been rising.1 These include high- profile lethal attacks against Jews, such as the Paris attacks in 2015 and the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, which are likely a consequence of this process. They also include numerous reports of ha- rassment, vandalism, graffiti, and violence. This study’s empirical results confirm