The AzAs (Antizionist Antisemitism) Scale: Measuring Antisemitism as Expressed in Relation to Israel and Its Supporters

Abstract

This paper reports on the development and testing of the AzAs (Antizionist Antisemitism) scale: a six-item questionnaire instrument for measuring antisemitic attitudes as articulated in the language of hostility to Israel and its supporters. It is important to be able to recognize and measure this kind of antisemitism because it is often embedded within ostensibly democratic discourse. The identification of this antisemitism is frequently contested even by those who are in broad agreement on the recognition of older forms of antisemitism. The scale contains a balance of protrait and contrait items, and achieved a satisfactory level of internal consistency when piloted on a sample of US-based respondents recruited through the Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing market ( N = 122). There appears to be no relationship between scores on the scale and the subjective political position of respondents (as measured on a left-right self-report scale). We suggest that the AzAs scale will be of general use in measuring antizionist antisemitism because (a) it collects several familiar and demonstrably antisemitic ideas expressed in relation to Israel and its supporters and (b) it exhibits good psychometric properties. Keywords: Antisemitism, Antizionism, Attitudes, Israel, Questionnaire instrument