Survey finds two-thirds of American Jews view Israel as safest place for Jews to live

A survey published on Wednesday by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) shows that two-thirds of American Jews who feel strongly connected to Judaism or Israel see the Jewish state as the safest place in the world for Jews to live today.

The poll was conducted during Jan 15-20 and sampled 710 American Jews from JPPI’s database. The group “does not constitute a representative sample of the entire US Jewish population” and “consists predominantly of those with a relatively strong connection to Jewish identity, and/or Jewish institutions, and/or Israel,” JPPI said.

The survey shows that 68% of people believe Israel is the safest place for Jews to live, a figure that’s gone up by about 5 percentage points from last year. Growing global antisemitism and the end of the war in Gaza were the main factors considered by the respondents, the survey reported. Forty percent of those polled cited antisemitism as the primary reason for considering immigration to Israel.

Varying degrees of religious affiliation impact those surveyed, with the highest agreement among Orthodox Jewish respondents (91%) and Haredi respondents (78%), followed by Conservative respondents (74%). The number is lower among Reform respondents (62%) and those without a denominational affiliation (64%).

Though the percentage of those who view Israel as the safest place for Jews has gone up in the last year, only about 8% of those surveyed say they are currently considering immigrating to Israel. Thirty-five percent say they might consider moving to the country under certain specific circumstances and 27% would do so in extreme circumstances. Some 12% say they would consider it at some point in the future, while roughly 13% said they would not consider moving to Israel under any circumstances.

A majority of respondents said they personally know Jews who have immigrated to Israel, and more than 70% believe those acquaintances are satisfied with their decision, according to the JPPI report.