Earlier this month, I was in Gdansk in Poland, giving a keynote lecture on ‘Jewish life in Europe since 7 October’. Present at the conference were government representatives responsible for combating antisemitism in all 27 EU countries, as well as multiple players from major organisations including UNESCO, the European Commission and the World Jewish Congress.
I was invited because the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) holds some of the most robust data that exist anywhere on how events since the 7 October attacks have affected Jews around the world, and the representatives in the room all urgently need reliable data to fight their corners. Still, coming on the heels of the deadly attack on Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in Washington DC and the Molotov cocktail assault in Boulder, Colorado – not to mention the Israel-Iran war and countless cases of antisemitism in the UK and around the world – I thought carefully about what I wanted to say.
Among the most important data I shared were some of the results from the JPR Research Panel survey we conducted among British Jews in summer 2024. Critically, those data look at how British Jews have been impacted by recent events, and they reveal just how challenging life has been. They show multiple signs of increased insecurity and anxiety, clear erosion of trust in some of the country’s most important political and media institutions, and a tendency to ‘close in’ – to gravitate towards the safety and security found among Jewish friends and a parallel shift away from the uncertainty and apprehension around non-Jewish ones. Not everyone feels this – there are plenty of exceptions – but looking across the community as a whole, these are the dominant patterns.
Dr Jonathan Boyd speaks at a European conference in Gdansk, sharing JPR data on how 7 October has impacted Jewish communities.
I have shared this data numerous times over the past year, in Britain and around the world. And the reaction is similar everywhere. These feelings aren’t unique to British Jews; they’re universal.
But in the hard-nosed, rapidly changing world of politics, they are only ‘true’ if they can be proven. Such opinions and experiences need to be accurately measured and demonstrated clearly through credible research. That’s why it is so critical to pursue an academically robust, multi-faceted, strategic approach to social research on Jews. Without that, all we have in our armoury are a few anecdotes and feelings.
Right now, we are working to update those data from mid-2024. The JPR ‘Jews in Uncertain Times Survey’ is in the field at the moment, open to any self-identifying Jew living in the UK, aged 16 or older. As last year, it seeks to understand how you are feeling today, as a Jew, living in Britain, in light of the many unsettling and traumatic experiences happening around us, in the UK, Israel and across the world. And as last year, the data generated will be used to ensure that community leaders, politicians and journalists know exactly what Jews think and feel so that there is no possibility that they can ever say ‘we did not know’.
British Jews at a demonstration in support for Israel.
But to allow us to do that work, we need your help. You need to complete the questionnaire. Without your participation, without hearing about your experiences and opinions, without your data and input, we have nothing to say beyond anecdote and personal feeling. That doesn’t cut it in the real world.
So please complete the survey. Your views matter, irrespective of what they are. It will only take up to 30 minutes of your time, but what you say will reach the most influential players working to fight antisemitism and support Jewish life in Britain and around the world. You can complete it at www.jpr.org.uk.
At the end of my presentation in Gdansk, I was surrounded by a coterie of government ministers and Jewish community leaders all eager to get their hands on the data I shared. They need it, they told me. They can’t fight this fight without it. So please help them by completing the survey.
Do it now.
- Dr Jonathan Boyd, executive director, Institute of Jewish Policy Research
