Jewish people in Czechia feel safer than in other EU countries, survey finds

Jewish people in Europe still encounter a lot of antisemitism and many hide their Jewish identity over concerns for their safety, according to a report published on Thursday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). However, safety concerns were less pronounced in Czechia than elsewhere in the EU.

In Czechia, only 11 percent said they were very concerned about harassment and five percent said they were afraid of being assaulted, the lowest proportion out of all the countries surveyed (the average was 53 and 44 percent respectively). While 80 percent of respondents from the 13 EU countries surveyed said they felt antisemitism had increased over the last 5 years and 84 percent said that antisemitism was a big problem in their lives, in Czechia those proportions were also significantly smaller - 43 percent and 27 percent respectively.

The survey was conducted among the 13 EU member states where 96 percent of the EU's Jewish population lives - Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Austria, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy, Denmark and Sweden. The surveying took place before the Hamas attack on Israel last October.