January 26, 2004

According to a poll taken throughout western Europe by the Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, 35.7% of those polled said that "Jews should stop 'playing the victim' for the Holocaust," 40.5% said that "Jews in their country had "a particular relationship with money'," and that 46% believed that "Jews in their countries had a 'mentality and lifestyle' different than other citizens." Interestingly, the poll showed that anti-Semitism was greater in countries like Italy, Austria, Spain and Germany than it is in France, the country where the focus (particularly from the U.S.) has been more intense. A poll the previous week indicated that as many as one in five Brits did not feel a Jew could serve as Prime Minister. For those who were comforted to believe that European anti-Semitism was confined to the far left and to Arab immigrants, these results should be a sobering antidote.

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