Israel a much higher priority for European Jewish leaders after Oct. 7, survey shows
Supporting the Jewish state rose from 14th to 5th in importance in a poll of hundreds of community heads from 32 countries
Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter
In a periodical survey of leaders of European Jewish communities, “supporting Israel” surged as a priority after October 7, according to a poll published Monday.
In the survey of 879 respondents in Jewish community leadership positions in 32 countries, the priority of supporting Israel rose from 14th place in 2021 to 5th this year, above easing communal tensions and supporting other Diaspora Jews in distress.
The data from the Sixth Survey of European Jewish Community Leaders and Professionals underline how Israel’s woes and their effects on antisemitism in the Diaspora serve to strengthen Zionist sentiment in many European Jews.
The survey was conducted in March and April 2024 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s International Centre for Community Development (JDC-ICCD). Combating antisemitism was the top priority, followed by supporting Jews in need in each community; strengthening Jewish education, and including young leadership in decision-making processes.
Supporting Israel scored 8.2, according to an average calculated by adding up respondents’ answers after they’d been asked to rank priorities on a scale of 1-10. That’s the highest score for that priority since JDC began polling European Jewish community leaders in 2008.
Eighty-three percent of respondents agreed with the statement that Israel is “critical to sustaining Jewish life in Europe” – up two percentage points from the 2021 survey.
On October 7, about 3,000 terrorists invaded border towns and cities in southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251. This action triggered an ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, where some 38,000 have died in the fighting, according to unconfirmed numbers published by the Hamas-run health ministry. The statistics don’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, of whom Israel says it has killed at least 15,000. The IDF killed another 1,000 Hamas terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
The war has unleashed a wave of antisemitic attacks in Europe and beyond.
The respondents in the survey were more pessimistic about antisemitism than in the past, with 83% expecting the problem to worsen in the coming years compared to 70% in 2021.
Some 93% agreed that events in Israel can lead to antisemitism in their countries, up from 81% three years ago.
The percentage of respondents who considered emigrating in the 2024 survey was 24%, compared to about 21% in the 2021 and the 2018 ones.
More than 75% said their governments responded adequately to their communities’ security needs and 41% said their communities were prepared to a large or very large degree to deal with an emergency situation.
“The grim impact of October 7 on Jewish communities in Europe is fully reflected in this study, but so is the commitment of local Jewish leaders to help their communities brave the storm,” said Ariel Zwang, JDC’s CEO.
