What Italian students think about Jews and anti-Semitism
Whether they have right-wing or left-wing political beliefs and whether they talk about conspiracy theories about international finance or Nazism, university students in Italy show a certain adversity towards Jews. Conversation with Asher Daniel Colombo, sociologist at the University of Bologna
Is there a problem of anti-Semitism in Italian universities and especially among students? An answer, partly positive and partly negative, comes from a sociological investigation carried out in the wake of the Hamas pogrom of 7 October on a sample of students from three universities in Northern Italy. We spoke about the results of the research, which were partially presented in a report by the Cattaneo Institute , with one of the authors, the sociologist from the University of Bologna Asher Daniel Colombo, who even defines them as "disturbing".
Can you tell us about the objectives and methodology of your research?
Having begun before 7 October, our research aimed to understand the attitudes towards all minorities, including the Jewish one, among the first-year students of three universities in Northern Italy (Padua, Milan Bicocca, Bologna). We carried out 2,600 interviews with as many students from both humanistic and scientific faculties who we asked to complete an electronic questionnaire with closed answers. In the report released by the Cattaneo Institute we present the results relating to attitudes towards Jews and Israel, assessed through the answers to fifteen questions.
What emerged?
The fifteen items tend to aggregate together into three large categories that collect statements that are similar from a content point of view and tend to be accepted or rejected together by the interviewees. The three groups of statements concern first of all the more classic conspiracy-type accusations made against Jews who control, for example, world finance and the media: here the values are relatively lower and vary from a minimum of 7% to a maximum of 17%. The second group of questions includes statements related to the alleged dual loyalty of Jews, and here the values vary from 7 to 30%. The last group includes claims about Jews exploiting the Holocaust and Israel behaving like Nazi Germany.
And in this case what values emerge?
In this case the values are much higher up to the maximum of 46% relating to the statement according to which the Israelis behave towards the Palestinians like the Nazis towards the Jews. Here we are almost half of the entire sample.
Did you expect these results?
We were very surprised by the results of this investigation. Although other surveys conducted in Italy present similar values, it is striking to find such marked results in the case of university students who theoretically should be more informed and aware. There are truly surprising data, for example 14% of those interviewed are convinced that the Jews are not Italian through and through, or the 17% who level the old accusation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion against the Jews of controlling world finance.
What does the comparison with other realities say?
International investigations give very variable results and tell us that Italy does not seem to have higher levels of anti-Semitism than those recorded in other countries. However, if I have to make a comment as a citizen rather than a scholar, these data still appear disturbing.
The percentage of students who agree with anti-Semitic statements varies depending on the reference groups. For example, political affiliation weighs a lot, doesn't it?
If we consider anti-Semitism of the classic type, which is measured on the basis of agreement with the statements of the first group, those of a conspiracy type, and of the second, that of accusations of dual loyalty, we discover that negative attitudes towards Jews are systematically more widespread among those on the right and centre-right, and the differences with left-wing students are very strong. Only 10% of the latter, for example, think that Jews control world finance compared to 22% of centre-right students and 35% of right-wing ones.
However, the situation changes in the case of so-called Nazism, right?
Yes, on the left the values are very high and go from the average of 46% to as much as 60%. But there is another factor that greatly influences the results.
Which?
The level of preparation. Among those who read more non-scholastic books, the rooting of these prejudicially negative attitudes is more difficult to establish. Having more solid tools of understanding, these students tend to rely less on pre-packaged ideological schemes applied uncritically. Those who read more in fewer words are less influenced by these preconceptions.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/che-cosa-pensano-gli-studenti-italiani-di-ebrei-e-antisemitismo/ on Sat, 25 Nov 2023 08:47:21 +0000.