Yes, we must guard against Islamophobia, right?

Never any different.

2500 years from Xerxes adviser Haman, the son of Amalekite kings.

Ignorance is king.

A nationwide survey of the American people released today by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic attitudes have risen slightly in America, demonstrating once again that “anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip” on a small but not insubstantial segment of America.

The ADL survey (.pdf) found that 15 percent of Americans – nearly 35 million adults – hold deeply anti-Semitic views, an increase of 3 percent from a similar poll conducted in 2009, and matching the levels of anti-Semitic propensities recorded in the U.S. in 2005 and 2007. Over the last decade, the highest level of anti-Semitic attitudes was reported in 2002, when an ADL poll found 17 percent of Americans harbored anti-Jewish attitudes.

The 2011 Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews in America, a national telephone survey of

1,754 adults, was conducted October 13-23 by Marttila Strategies of Washington, D.C. and Boston. The margin of error is +/-2.8 percent.

“The fact that anti-Semitic attitudes have increased significantly over the past two years is troubling and raises questions about the impact of broader trends in America – financial insecurity, social uncertainty, the decline in civility and the growth of polarization – on attitudes toward Jews,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “It is disturbing that with all of the strides we have made in becoming a more tolerant society, anti-Semitic beliefs continue to hold a vicegrip on a small but not insubstantial segment of the American public.”

I’d say, you have to be kidding me, right? But obviously, I cannot.

I grew up in the Bronx in the 1950’s. In my memory the neighborhood near 1832 Bryant Ave, just off the Cross Bronx Expressway where it crossed Boston Rd, was about 30% white, 30% black, and 30% puerto rican. NOBODY THOUGHT SHIT ABOUT IT. The white population was about half jewish, and the remainder was about evenly split between italian and everybody else.

We learned about the Holocaust in history about 4-5th grade. I thought it was over and we’d never have to face anything like that again. Integration was starting as Selma and civil actions began, and frankly, in my neighborhood, in my family our imaginations saw another kind of future.

HUMANS HAD LEARNED ONE STUPID THING, AT LEAST.

But now, with a 62nd birthday looming, it’s obvious that human nature is in the way.

15% of Americans hold deeply antisemitic views?

Impossible to comprehend. About 1 of every 6 people?

If that is so, imagine the rest of the world.

Then, Israel must survive.

Or one day, jews will not.

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• Fourteen percent (14%) agreed with the statement that "Jews have too much power in the U.S. today," an increase from 13 percent in 2009.

• Fifteen percent (15 %) agreed that Jews are "more willing to use shady practices," up slightly from 2009.

• Sixteen percent (16%) agreed that Jewish "business people are so shrewd, others don't have a chance," up from 13 percent in 2009.

• Thirty percent (30%) believe that Jews are "more loyal to Israel than to America," a percentage that has remained virtually unchanged since ADL's benchmark survey in 1964, despite the changing makeup of the U.S population.

• Nearly half of all respondents agreed with the statement that Jews "stick together more than other Americans, and 33 percent said they believe Jews "always like to be at the head of things."

• A surprisingly large number of Americans continue to believe that "Jews were responsible for the death of Christ." Thirty-one percent (31%) of Americans agreed with that statement. One-quarter of Americans believe that Jews "still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust."