Almost half of Muslim youth in Austria hold anti-Semitic views, according to the latest study published by the University of Teacher Education in Vienna.
The Jerusalem Post reports that 48 percent of Austrian Muslim teens believe that “Jews have too much influence in Austria”.
The Austrian daily Der Standard emphasized in its report that this helps explain “imported antisemitism” in Europe, referring to over 1 million immigrants Europe accepted in 2016, many claiming refugee status from wars in the Middle East.
The youth who engaged in the poll ranged in age from 16-19 years old. Another criteria for eligibility in this poll was that the subject be from a migrant background, most of which were from Muslim-majority nations.
The conclusion drawn by the polls administrators, Georg Lauss and Stefan Schmid-Heher, were that “Educational and prevention efforts against antisemitism need to be strengthened.”
Supplementing the validity of this study, a similar study was conducted in 2015 by Kenan Güngör, an Austrian sociologist from Vienna. His study found the same outcome – that there is widespread antisemitism being spread across the Muslim youth community. His study, showing almost identical results, indicates that 47% of Austrian Muslims hold antisemitic views against Jews.
A non-government organization reports that anti-Semitism reached all-time highs this year in Austria, ranging from cyber threats to verbal harassment and assaults.
Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde reports that anti-Semitic altercations in Austria grew by a staggering 82 percent between 2014-2015.
Austria’s Jewish population accounts for an extremely small minority of the general population in Austria, clocking in at just 0.17 percent out of 8.8 million people.