(JTA) — Forty-one percent of young Jews in Europe have considered emigrating because of safety concerns, according to the findings of a survey published Thursday.
Some 2,700 respondents aged 16-34 said they wanted to leave “because they did not feel safe living there as a Jewish person,” the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights agency wrote in a statement.
The data comes from an analysis of a 2018 survey conducted by the agency. There is no margin of error.
Along among the young people grouping, 45 percent said they choose not to wear, carry or display distinguishable Jewish items in public because there are concerned about their safety.
The young Jews surveyed come from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Overall, 44 percent of the young respondents said they had experienced anti-Semitic harassment, which is 12 percent higher than their elders in the survey of more than 16,000 respondents. Eighty percent of young victims do not report harassment to the police or any other authority, according to the survey.
More than 80 percent of the young Jewish Europeans declared the strength of their Jewish identity to be high.
Nearly two-thirds, or 62 percent, of young respondents said they have a “strong attachment” to Israel, a proportion nearly identical to their attachment level to their own countries. Only 35 percent reported having the same sentiment toward the European Union.
“Young Jewish Europeans are very attached to their Jewish identity,” the EU commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, Vera Jourova, said in a statement. “I am saddened that they fear for their security in Europe, do not dare to wear a kippah and some even consider emigrating.”
