Anti-Defimation League Logo. Source: ADL

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it has received a three-year, $7.5 million grant to create a Global Anti-Semitism Index, an annual barometer of anti-Semitic attitudes around the world.

The new index will measure anti-Semitic attitudes in 50 countries around the world, with additional countries being added in each subsequent year. The project builds on ADL’s past polling efforts, first introduced in 1964. Its polls have been conducted regularly in the United States and in as many as 12 countries in Europe since 2002.

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said: “The Global Anti-Semitism Index will give us the ability not only to better understand the magnitude of the problem around the world, but to assess where it is most problematic, how pervasive it is in certain regions, and exactly which anti-Jewish beliefs are the most seriously entrenched.”

“We will be able to share that information with governments to use it as a lever to promote education and legislation against anti-Semitism.  We will be able to present countries and international bodies with hard data on the actual level of attitudinal biases toward Jews around the world.  And we will be able to pinpoint which countries are the most deeply infected with one of the world’s oldest hatreds.”

Foxman announced the new ADL initiative at the 4th International  Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism Conference  in Jerusalem.

The initial ADL Global Anti-Semitism Index survey will be conducted by First International Resources LLC, and compiled and released before the end of 2013.

ADL’s most recent survey of Attitudes Toward Jews in 10 European Countries, an opinion poll of 5,000 Europeans, found that anti-Semitic attitudes remain at disturbingly high levels across Europe.  The poll was conducted in January 2012 in Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Its Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews, released in November 2011, found that 15 percent of Americans – nearly 35 million adults – continue to hold deeply anti-Semitic views, an increase of 3 percent from a similar poll conducted in the United States in 2009.