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Misunderstandings of Anti-Semitism in Russia: An Analysis of the Politics of Anti-Jewish Attitudes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

James L. Gibson
James L. Gibson*
Affiliation:
University of Houston
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Extract

In a recent article in this journal Brym and Degtyarev made a number of claims about the dangers of anti-Semitism in Moscow. On the basis of a telephone survey conducted in 1992, they concluded their analysis with these ominous admonishments: "The evidence thus suggests that some large categories of Moscow's population hold attitudes that are authoritarian, xenophobic, illiberal on social issues and, of course, anti-Semitic. Given the prevalence of anti-Semitic attitudes in the city, Moscow's 150,000 Jews and the 300,000 in the rest of Russia have reason to be anxious." These are serious and important findings, suffused with both theoretical and policy implications. It is therefore important to have a careful look at their data, analysis and substantive conclusions.

Type
Response
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , Fall 1994 , pp. 829 - 835
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1994

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References

1. Robert J. Brym and Andrei Degtyarev, “Anti-Semitism in Moscow: Results of an October 1992 Survey,” Slavic Review 52, no. 1 (1993): 11.

2. James L. Gibson and Raymond M. Duch, “Anti-Semitic Attitudes of the Mass Public: Estimates and Explanations Based on a Survey of the Moscow Oblast,” Public Opinion Quarterly 56 (1992): 1-28. This is the research they discuss on page 2 of their article, reporting that the work was summarized in The New York Times. There are a number of inaccuracies in their characterization of that research but they need not detract from the central empirical points I address here.

3. James, L. Gibson and Raymond, M. Duch, “Attitudes toward Jews and the Soviet Political Culture,” Journal of the Soviet Nationalities 2 (1992): 77–117 Google Scholar.

4. Curiously, Brym and Degtyarev cite virtually none of the research literature on anti-Semitism. For a list of references see Gibson and Duch, “Anti-Semitic Attitudes of the Mass Public” and “Attitudes toward Jews and the Soviet Political Culture. ”

5. Lawrence Bobo and James R. Kluegel, “Modern American Prejudice: Stereotypes, Social Distance, and Perceptions of Discrimination toward Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians,” paper presented at the 1991 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, 23-27 August 1991 (available as GSS Topical Report No. 21. NORC, Chicago).

6. Clyde, Haberman, “Israeli Loan Dispute Turns Ugly; Rightist Calls Bush ‘Anti-Semite,” The New York Times (16 September 1991): 1Google Scholar.

7. Quoted in Tom W., Smith, What Do Americans Think about Jews'? (New York: The American Jewish Committee, 1991), 16Google Scholar.

8. Earl, Raab, “Attitudes toward Israel and Attitudes toward Jews: The Relationship” in Antisemitism in the Contemporary World, ed. Curtis, Michael (Boulder: Westview, 1986), 296 Google Scholar (emphasis in original removed).

9. Note, for instance, that the Anti-Defamation League study of anti-Semitism in the US (cited below) used not a single item on Zionism; only one of eleven items referred to Israel.

10. T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel J. Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1950), 71Google Scholar (emphasis in original).

11. Allport provides a useful definition of prejudice: ” … an avertive or hostile attitude toward a person who belongs to a group, simply because he belongs to that group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to the group” ( Allport, Gordon W., The Nature of Prejudice [Garden City: Doubleday-Anchor Books, 1950], 8Google Scholar).

12. Nonetheless, I am willing to concede that it is not entirely unreasonable to characterize many if not most of those perceiving a Zionist plot against Russia as anti-Semitic. In light of the fact that most anti-Semites would probably claim a plot exists, while some fraction of those who are not anti-Semitic might also recognize a plot, their figures of 13.6 to 17.8% asserting there is or may be a global plot must be taken as a maximal estimate of the level of anti-Semitism in Moscow.

13. Note that I also argue below that responses to this item are contaminated by a more general willingness to accept conspiracy theories. This also threatens the validity of their measure.

14. The citation provided by Brym and Degtyarev is to page 443 of “Rosenfeld's” (sic) article. Neither page 443 nor any part of the article refers to this “hard-core” anti-Semitism. It is their position that those who answer “-5” to the question “How far up or down the scale would you rate Jews as a group?” are “hard-core” anti-Semites. There is a tradition in the anti-Semitism literature of trying to categorize the extent of anti-Jewish attitudes, but I am aware of no other authors who use the methodology of Brym and Degtyarev.

15. Anti-Defamation League, Highlights from an Anti-Defamation League Survey on Anti-Semitism and Prejudice in America (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 1992), 2.

16. John L. Sullivan, James E. Piereson and George E. Marcus, Political Tolerance and American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 Google Scholar.