Pew Study On Religion Finds Increased Harassment Of Jews : The Two-Way : NPR

The latest report on harassment of religions, both from governments and by individuals:

The Pew report, which is based on data and reports from 2013, finds that Muslims and Christians face comparable levels of hostility, though Christians are harassed more often by governments, Muslims more often by individuals.

One group faces increased hostility: Jews. Each year since 2007, when Pew began these surveys, the targeting of Jews around the world has gotten worse.

European Jews, in particular, encounter intolerance, says Peter Henne, the lead Pew researcher on the report.

“There’s a pretty marked harassment of Jews in Europe,” he says. “They’re harassed in 76 percent of countries in Europe, which is higher than the number of countries in which they’re harassed in other regions.”

The United States does not get off the hook in the Pew report. It ranks the U.S. as having a “moderate” level of religious harassment, on par with such countries as France, Slovakia and Mongolia.

“In terms of what we see in the United States, there are some issues with land use, churches or mosques trying to build or expand their site and being blocked by local governments,” Henne says. “There are some tensions in prisons — limits on prisoners’ ability to convert or to use things like tobacco in religious ceremonies.”

Overall, the level of religious harassment in 2013 is about the same as it was the year before, according to Pew. But with only seven years of data, it’s hard to see any historical trend.

Pew Study On Religion Finds Increased Harassment Of Jews : The Two-Way : NPR.