Italy: 60% of Jews say antisemitism is big problems, harassment led by left-wingers

Via Times of Israel:

Even before this summer’s Gaza war, which spawned a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment across Europe, and recent high-profile attacks on Jewish institutions in Brussels and Paris, over 60 percent of Italian Jews considered anti-Semitism a large or a very large problem in Italy. Additionally, two-thirds believe it has significantly increased in the past five years, according to a new study released Tuesday by the London-based Jewish Policy Research.

The Italy report was published on the JPR website and is called “From Old and New Directions Perceptions and Experiences of Antisemitism Among Jews in Italy.” It is based on data gathered until the end of 2012, a year which saw what is considered a turning point for contemporary European Jewry, the Toulouse massacre at a Jewish day school where Mohammed Merah, a French Muslim man, shot and killed a rabbi and three children. 

From the report:

The political and ideological background of perpetrators was highlighted both in relation to harassment and to physical violence. A left-wing political view was mentioned by approximately 30%-40% of the respondents, while perpetrators with a right-wing political view were mentioned by about 20%-30% of the respondents. About a sixth of all respondents mentioned someone with a Muslim extremist view as a source of harassment and physical violence. Perpetrators with a Christian extremist view were mentioned by 13% in relation to harassment and 3% in relation to physical violence. These findings are significant in view of the widespread influence of political orientations in the media, public opinion, and cultural life in Italy.  

Besides politics, ideologies and religious background, a teenager or a group of teenagers was quite a commonly mentioned category (13% for harassment and 10% for physical violence). About 10-20% of respondents could not categorise the perpetrators using any of the suggested types and answered ‘Someone else’.

Whilst all of these categories are deliberately broad and the responses are based on victims’ perceptions of the perpetrator rather than a more objective assessment, the findings for Italy differ somewhat from other Western European Jewish populations – notably France, UK, Belgium and Sweden – where the top two categories are “someone with a left-wing political view” and   “someone with a Muslim extremist view.” 

By contrast, in Hungary, the top two categories are “someone with a right-wing extremist view” and “someone with a Christian extremist view.” This suggests that, in the experience of Jews in Italy, antisemitic incidents are motivated partly by a spill-over of incidents in Israel and the Middle East, and partly by a continuing tendency for anti-Jewish hostility from the political right (see more below).