Respondents sought for Scottish survey

THE SCOTTISH Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) is conducting a survey into “Being Jewish in Scotland”, a follow-up to two Scottish Government-funded inquiries carried out by SCoJeC in 2011-12 and 2014-15.

SCoJeC gained a better understanding from the first study into what affects the sense of security of individuals and communities. The second was prompted by reports of widespread and significant deterioration of attitudes affecting the lives of Scottish Jews.

The latest study is being launched in the context of “an increasingly polarised society where antisemitism has become a familiar topic of discussion both in the media and in the political arena. Jewish people are understandably unsettled and it is therefore timely to revisit our previous findings in order to identify patterns and find out whether Scotland is different from the rest of the UK.”

SCoJeC director Ephraim Borowski told the JC: “These inquiries are important as they both inform the representations we make on behalf of the Jewish community and help to build engagement and connection within the community.”

The charity has received some funding through the Q-Step programme run by the University of Glasgow to enable two final year social science students to work on the study together with Dr Fiona Frank, SCoJeC’s projects and outreach manager.

She hoped that interim findings would be published in February with a longer report, “taking into account qualitative data from focus groups”, available later in 2020.

The survey can be accessed on the SCoJeC website, www.scojec.org.