Antisemitism in Greece:

Evidence from a Representative Survey

1



Principal Investigators:

Antoniou Georgios, International Hellenic University
Dinas Elias, University of Oxford
Kosmidis Spyros, University of Oxford
Saltiel Leon, University of Macedonia


Abstract:

In a recent survey by ADL (http://global100.adl.org/#map/weurope),
Greece was the most anti-Semitic country across all Western Europe reaching
a 69% with France been second with a 37%. Given the very low number of
Jewish people living in Greece, the 69% of Greeks who hold such attitudes is
puzzling. To shed light on the profile of those people we conducted our own
representative survey of the Greek population to gauge the influence of
specific demographics and the impact of key characteristics that plausibly
explain the variation of anti-Semitism among the Greeks. To do so, we
collected data on a variety of issues including social trust, belief in
conspiracies, subjective and objective political knowledge, Jewish-specific
knowledge, ideological leanings and a measure tapping into victimisation. In
this report, we set out our core methodology and present the preliminary
descriptive statistics from this survey. If you wish to site this report use the
following:

Antoniou, Georgios, Elias Dinas, Spyros Kosmidis, Leon Saltiel. 2014. Report
on Antisemitism in Greece, Summer 2014.









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The Survey:

Sample: 1045 Greeks over 18 sampled via a multistage quote random sample
Fieldwork: 23-27/06/2014
Data Collection: University of Macedonia, Public Opinion Research Unit,
Supervisor and Head, Dr Iannis Konstantinidis, Assistant Professor
Method of Data Collection: CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Surveys)



Measurement of Anti-Semitic Attitudes:

We developed three survey questions that could tap into anti-Semitic stances
as well as a series of experiments to gauge alternative dimensions of anti-
Semitism. In the following pages we will only present the distribution of the
main observational (that is non experimental) data yet we also visualise the
relationships between key variables and antisemitism.
Figure 1 presents the distribution of the Likert Agree/Disagree scale
on the following two items The Jews exploit Holocaust to gain influence in the
International arena and The Jews treat Palestinians in the same way they were
treated by the Germans in WWII. The questions were mixed in terms of
sequencewith other statements that are unrelated to anti-Semitism. As it is
clear from Figures 1 and 2 the distribution of the two variables is very similar
although qualitatively distinct.




Figure 1: The Jews exploit Holocaust to gain influence in the International arena






Figure 2: The Jews treat Palestinians in the same way they were treated by the
Germans in WWII





13.03
10.29
11.54
25.37
39.77
0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
NeitherNor
Agree
Strongly Agree
Jews Exploit Holocaust
12.83
11.18 11.29
24.67
40.02
0
1
0
2
0
3
0
4
0
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
NeitherNor
Agree
Strongly Agree
Jews Treat Palestinians
As it becomes clear the levels of anti-Semitism in Greece are extremely high
and they generally confirm the recent survey by the ADL. In contrast to that
survey, our survey gives us the chance to thoroughly explore the variations in
anti-Semitism. The following section explores whether and how different
variables relate to anti-Semitism.




Explanatory Variables:



1) Demographics

We mainly explore the relationship between Age, Education and
Antisemitism and we use two ways to visualise these relationships. The first
includes a breakdown of the first two histograms by age groups and different
levels of education. The two figures (3(a) and 3(b)) present the two anti-
Semitism attitude scales stratified by gender and age. Both measures seem to
reveal identical patterns (perhaps the 18-34 female figure is slightly different)
namely a constant increase of anti-Semitic attitudes the older the respondents
are. The gender differences are negligible with the exception of young females
in the sample who demonstrate a more balanced distribution of opinions.
Again, 42% is still a large percentage of anti-Semitic opinions.









Figure 3: Age, Education and Antisemitism

(a)
(b)

17.65
11.76
9.804
31.37
29.41
17.69
8.462
10
24.62
39.23
10.32
5.806
7.742
21.94
54.19
15.38
25.27
17.58
24.18
17.58
13.15
10.36
13.15
25.5
37.85
9.645
7.614
11.17
27.41
44.16
0
2
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4
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A
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e
Male, 18-34 Male, 35-54 Male, 55+
Female, 18-34 Female, 35-54 Female, 55+
P
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r
c
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n
t
Jews Exploit Holocaust
17.65
11.76
9.804
35.29
25.49
16.3
9.63
11.11
25.93
37.04
14.63
12.8
8.537
17.68
46.34
12.77
17.02
18.09
32.98
19.15
10.81
8.494
11.97
28.96
39.77
10.53
11.48
10.05
17.7
50.24
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2
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Male, 18-34 Male, 35-54 Male, 55+
Female, 18-34 Female, 35-54 Female, 55+
P
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Jews Treat Palestinians
Figure 4 presents the relationship between education and anti-Semitism
utilising a local polynomial smoother. Figure 4 suggests that respondents
with lower levels of education hold stronger anti-Semitic views, that become
weaker the more educated respondents are. This is not to say that
respondents with postgraduate degrees do not hold such views. Although
they are less anti-Semitic compared to respondents with no university
education, their scores are still considerably high. Figure 5 is more revealing
in terms of the exact numbers across education levels. Do notice, however,
that the numbers for primary and high school graduates are not particularly
high in our sample to make reliable inferences.

Figure 4: Levels of Education and Antisemitism (local polynomial)







6
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Levels of Education

Figure 5: Levels of Education and Antisemitism (categorical)






2) Conspiracy Theories and Antisemitism


According to the global survey on anti-Semitism conducted by ADL, the
numbers for Greece are startling and significantly larger compared to any
other European country. In fact it is only comparable to Middle Eastern
countries. Is anti-Semitism a real attitude for Greek citizens? Do they hold
such strong opinions that would define their behaviour? To address this, we
collected data on a number of prominent conspiracy theories to gauge the
general tendency of different responses to subscribe in conspiratorial aligns of
reasoning. More specifically, we asked questions about the 9/11 events and
whether this was hoax to impose US foreign policy in the world or whether
the cure for cancer has been found and the pharmaceutical industry does not
2.47
1.23
8.64
1.23
8.64
4.94
7.41
18.52
46.91
6.82
2.27
6.82
11.36
6.82
20.45
22.7322.73
1.84 1.38
4.61
8.29
16.13
5.99
11.06
23.04
27.65
3.08 3.85
5.38 4.62
15.38
10.00
13.08
16.92
27.69
5.91
3.54
5.51
6.30
19.69
12.99
12.20
17.32
16.54
8.45 8.45
11.2711.27
21.13
11.27
5.63
14.08
8.45
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Primary HighSchool Secondary (Lyceum)
Technical/Vocational University Postgraduate
P
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Antisemitism (Cobined)
put it on sale to make more money, whether Neal Armstrong really landed on
the moon in 1969 and, finally, whether the Greek crisis was imposed by
international centres. To ease presentation we created an additive index of
all these theories on which low values denote Strong Disagreement and
high values Strong agreement in all four statements presented to our
respondents.

Figure 6: Conspiratorial Thinking (categorical) and Antisemitism




34.07
13.19 13.19
19.78 19.78
17.22
14.29 13.55
26.37
28.57
5.855
7.728
10.07
25.29
51.05
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Low Conspiracy
Medium Conspiracy
High Conspiracy
%
Jews Exploit Holocaust to Gain Inuence
c) Social (Interpersonal) Trust and Antisemitism


A plausible trait of respondents who would hold antisemitic views is lack of
trust. We tried to evaluate this using a 5-point scale measuring whether the
respondent can trust (1) or be suspicious (5) of other people. This type of scale
resembles to an interpersonal trust measure widely used in the literature.
Figure 7 plots the nonlinear relationship via a local polynomial smoother. As
it is clear from the plot, respondents who are more suspicious of others are
more likely to hold antisemitic attitudes. Notice that on the vertical axis we
report the combined measure of antisemitism (Figures 1 and 2 combined). In
this sense a 10 means a strong agreement on both items.


Figure 7: Social Trust and Antisemitism






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Interpersonal Trust
Final Remarks

In this short report we have presented the distribution of some of the
measures we collected in our survey along with the relationship between
these variables and anti-Semitism. The purpose of this memo is to inform
those interested on the topic or Greek public opinion. The project team will
make this report public and it is advisable for those interested to contact the
authors for any queries or ideas. We do understand that a significant part of
this project was related to conspiracy theories (see Figure 6). In the Appendix
you can find the details for those measures along with additional plots
exploring plausible relationships that could help us understand this
phenomenon. Do notice, finally, that we only present relationships that
survive the significance tests of multivariate empirical models.




























APPENDIX

A. Correlates of Conspiratorial Thinking


Figure A.1: Conspiratorial Thinking across regions




4.03
3.26
1.92
2.50
5.37 5.37
6.72
6.33
9.79 9.60
11.13
11.90
22.07
1.74
0.87 0.87
2.61
3.48
4.35
5.22
6.96
9.57
10.4310.43
22.61
20.87
5.95
1.49
2.23 2.23
6.69
4.46
8.18
5.58
12.27
12.64
9.29
10.04
18.96
0
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1
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Rest
Thessaloniki
Attiki
P
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c
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n
t
Belief in Conspiracy Theories



Figure A.2: Conspiratorial Thinking across Levels of Education




Figure A.3: Conspiratorial Thinking across Age Groups



9
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+
Age


Figure A.4: Conspiratorial Thinking and Interpersonal Trust



Figure A.5: Conspiratorial Thinking and Ethnocentrism/Cosmopolitanism


9
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Ethnocentrism and Cosmopolitanism