What Drives Antisemitic Attitudes After October 7? Evidence from Two Years of Panel Data

 

The FZI Research Center for Information Technology and the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism published today  Antisemitism and Social Sentiment in Times of Crises, the first comprehensive analysis of how antisemitic attitudes have developed in Germany and the United States in the two years since October 7, 2023. The central finding is striking: in both countries, age is the single strongest predictor of antisemitic attitudes — with a particularly pronounced effect in the United States. Factors such as social media use and party affiliation were also examined.

The analysis draws on the SOSEC bi-weekly longitudinal panel survey. Starting in 2022 it has surveyed respondents on their political attitudes, media consumption, and social perception in Germany and the US.

An Unusual Collaboration, Chosen for Methodological Reasons

“Research on antisemitism requires both historical depth and empirical breadth. By combining the computational methods of the FZI’s information systems research with the theoretical work of the NYU Center, we are able to describe patterns of attitudes and to trace their social dynamics as they unfold over time,” says Dr. Jonas Fegert, head of the FZI’s House of Participation. Professor Avinoam Patt of the NYU Center for the Study of Antisemitism points out that the joint research report highlights the strength of interdisciplinary research and the comparative nature of this work, which emphasizes the value of global transnational research. Commenting on the findings, he adds: “These findings are quite alarming, especially highlighting the growing tendency among young people to express antisemitic attitudes which are linked to social media use and conspiratorial thinking. This research is just the beginning and points to directions for future research yet to be conducted.”

A Note on Method: Why Antisemitism Cannot Be Measured Directly

Antisemitic attitudes are normatively sensitive and subject to strong social desirability effects. Direct questions (“Do you hold antisemitic views?”) yield little of methodological value. Yet, embedded within a broader panel, these indicators can be set in relation to political orientation, media use, and a wide range of social attitudes.

Key Findings

  • Age is the strongest predictor — especially in the United States. Even when income, education, political orientation, and gender are held constant, age remains by far the most powerful factor in determining agreement with the statement “Jews do not fit into American society”. Americans under 45 are substantially more likely than respondents aged 60 and above to endorse such views. In Germany, the age effect is present, but considerably weaker.
  • The generational gap is widening. In the United States, the coefficients for younger age groups have risen markedly since these items were first recorded in the survey. The divide between generations is also growing.
  • Social media use and conspiratorial thinking reinforce one another — again, most clearly evident in the United States. American respondents who agree that their country is “dominated by a foreign power pulling the strings in the background,” and who at the same time consume social media intensively, exhibit substantially higher levels of antisemitic attitudes. The effect of conspiratorial beliefs is also present in Germany, but less intense.
  • Israel-related antisemitism is gaining explanatory weight. In both countries, a greater proportion of respondents agree with the statement that it is understandable why some people dislike Jews because of Israeli policy. This figure is rising sharply in the United States and more moderately but steadily in Germany. Furthermore, younger Americans tend to equate Israeli politics with their perceptions of Jews in their own country — a pattern that does not appear in the German data.
  • Partisan patterns differ systematically between the two countries. In Germany, supporters of the AfD party — which is classified as a suspected right-wing extremist party by domestic intelligence — show considerably higher levels of agreement with antisemitic statements than the political mainstream. The binary American party system does not yield an equivalent clear contrast between Democrats and Republicans. A sweeping narrative of a “left-wing” wave of antisemitism is not supported by the data: left-leaning respondents are less likely to agree with antisemitic statements than right-leaning ones, and more often regard antisemitism as a serious societal problem.

An Invitation to Further Research

The authors explicitly frame the report as the opening of a conversation rather than its conclusion. An interdisciplinary workshop held in October 2025 already introduced historians and social scientists to the SOSEC dataset. The data are open to further research — in particular for comparative studies of antisemitic and anti-Muslim attitudes, longitudinal studies of generational change, and investigations into the effectiveness of Holocaust education under transformed media conditions.

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