According to a survey, more than a third of people in Austria believe in anti-Jewish myths.
Among the 2,000 respondents, 36 percent supported the statement that Jews dominated the international business community, according to the parliament-commissioned representative study that was presented. An equal proportion felt that Jews would try to take advantage of their persecution in the Holocaust.
According to study leader Eva Zeglovits, prejudice against Jews was more pronounced among people with less education, little knowledge of Judaism, and general propensity for conspiracy theories. The pollsters also found an above-average level of agreement with anti-Semitic statements among people of Turkish and Arabic origin.
In view of the survey results, the President of the Jewish religious community in Austria, Oskar Deutsch, called for “more knowledge about the Shoah and honest dealing with anti-Semitism” in society. “Danger does not only come from extremists, there is also anti-Semitism in the middle,” he wrote on Twitter and again called for a political boycott against the right-wing FPÖ.
