American Jews feeling less safe: Survey

American Jews report feeling significantly less safe than they did one year ago, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The annual survey from the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a global advocacy organization, shows a 22-point increase in the share of American Jews who say the status of Jews in the U.S. is “less secure than a year ago.”

In the 2023 survey, 63 percent of American Jews say the status of Jews in the country is “less secure than a year ago,” up from the 41 percent who said the same in the 2022 survey.

About 34 percent of American Jews said in the new poll they felt “about the same as a year ago.” In 2022, 55 percent said they felt about the same.

In an op-ed Tuesday released with the survey results, former Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), AJC’s chief executive, called on non-Jewish allies to stand with Jews against antisemitism.

Deutch also pointed to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization that governs Gaza, as an inflection point for Jews. The survey included interviews with 1,528 American Jewish adults, conducted from Oct. 5 through Nov. 21.

“We are at an inflection point. The Jewish community is defiantly standing united, and we need our non-Jewish allies to stand with us,” Deutch wrote. “If, before Oct. 7, antisemitism was a slow-burning fire, it has now become a five-alarm emergency that requires all of us to douse its flames.”

The survey also showed that 46 percent of American Jews have changed their behavior in the past year “out of fear of antisemitism” by either “avoiding certain places or events, publicly wearing or displaying things, or posting social media content that might identify them as Jewish.”

“It is sadly not surprising that the vast majority of American Jews are feeling less safe today than they did before October 7, 2023,” Deutch said in a separate statement.

“In the days, weeks, and months since the terror attack, the world has seen a staggering increase in antisemitic speech, anti-Jewish violence, and demonstrations glorifying Hamas terrorists. How are Jews supposed to feel secure when so many side with the murderers in the wake of the deadliest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust?”

The AJC survey had a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.