# Why Do Koreans Hate Jews? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 25, 2009, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304 "2009-04-25T07:08:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/1 "2009-04-25T07:08:19Z")
On the most recent “fourth wave” of the World Values Survey ([http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com)), 64,288 adults from 62 nations were asked in face-to-face interviews the following question (A133): _“On this list of various groups of people, could you please point out any that you might not like to have as neighbors?”_ The list included a variety of racial/ethnic/religious groups, including Jews. Most of the results are basically what you might expect (83.4% of Iraqis didn’t want Jews next door, as did 61.9% of Turks and 25.1% of Poles). But I was rather surprised to see that third on the list of anti-Semitic nations was Korea, with 40.9% (n = 1200) identifying Jews as someone they would not welcome as a neighbor. By contrast, only 1.6% of Dutch and 16.5% of Egyptians felt the same. What do Koreans have against Jews? Is there some history there that I’m not aware of? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/2 "2009-04-25T08:14:10Z")
Was it a write-in question or did the interviewee simply tick a box? 'Cause I could see a Korean simply ticking every box that didn’t say “Korean”. ---
**Author:** ![firstname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7ab992/32.png) [@firstname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/firstname)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/3 "2009-04-25T08:21:17Z")
To add this question on, why such a high number amongst Poles? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/4 "2009-04-25T08:22:57Z")
Where on the site that you linked to is the information that you’re citing? I can’t find jack-shit about any Question A133 there, much less any information about how Koreans or anybody else answered it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_H\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9bcb4/32.png) [@John\_H\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_H_1)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/5 "2009-04-25T08:32:46Z")
After banging my head against the site for a bit I was able to pull some data from the same survey. If you look at their responses to ‘not liked neighbors’ you can see: 57.3 % Muslims 46.8 % Immigrants/Foreign workers 40.9 % Jews So Jews could very well have been responded to as a sub set of foreigners. ---
**Author:** ![mrpayday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@mrpayday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrpayday)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/6 "2009-04-25T08:46:12Z")
They killed Jesus? Korea does seem to have some whacky Christian sects. ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/7 "2009-04-25T12:58:43Z")
Who said Koreans hate Jews? And how the fuck do you draw the conclusion that an entire nation is anti-Semitic when less than half the respondents of a very small sample MIGHT not want Jews for a next-door neighbor? Maybe we should be asking why 480 of the 1200 Koreans interviewed don’t want Jews as a neighbor? ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/8 "2009-04-25T13:06:22Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#): > > Who said Koreans hate Jews? And how the fuck do you draw the conclusion that an entire nation is anti-Semitic when less than half the respondents of a very small sample MIGHT not want Jews for a next-door neighbor? > > Maybe we should be asking why 480 of the 1200 Koreans interviewed don’t want Jews as a neighbor? Your point is taken … but to be fair to the OP, isn’t 1200 about the number of people polled to get presidential approval rankings? I understand that in approval rankings, those 1200 can be expected to be distributed throughout the U.S. and distributed among various races and religions. But still. ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/9 "2009-04-25T13:40:28Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#): > > Who said Koreans hate Jews? And how the fuck do you draw the conclusion that an entire nation is anti-Semitic when less than half the respondents of a very small sample MIGHT not want Jews for a next-door neighbor? > > Maybe we should be asking why 480 of the 1200 Koreans interviewed don’t want Jews as a neighbor? Statistics is not always intuitive. 1200 is a good-sized sample, provided that it is unbiased. ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/10 "2009-04-25T13:41:25Z")
Thanks. > [@Kimstu](#): > > Where on the site that you linked to is the information that you’re citing? I can’t find jack-shit about any Question A133 there, much less any information about how Koreans or anybody else answered it. 1. Go to [http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/) 2. Click on “Online Data Analysis” on the left. 3. Click on “HERE” at the bottom. 4. Click on “Four-wave Aggregate of the Values Studies” in the middle. 5. Click on the box next to “1999/2000” at the top. 6. Click “Confirm Selection” at the top. 7. Scroll down the list and click on “Neighbours: Jews(A133)”. 8. Click on “Cross Tabs”. 9. Click on the box next to “X\<.\>Y (exchange rows and columns)”. 10. Enjoy. ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/11 "2009-04-25T14:06:03Z")
> [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](#): > > Statistics is not always intuitive. 1200 is a good-sized sample, provided that it is unbiased. That’s nice that it’s a good-sized sample. I don’t see where statistics has anything to do with this. Please explain how a “good-sized sample” with **less than half** of the respondents leaning a particular way becomes representative of the **entire population** that sample is supposedly representing leaning that same way? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/12 "2009-04-25T14:08:23Z")
I used to work for an apartment moving company. The customer, a Korean woman, wanted to pre-empt any kind of hassle or discrimination, so she gave my dispatcher a fake name: Sheila Rosenberg. It occurred to me that the stereotype for one is awfully similar to the stereotype for the other. She should probably have called herself “Tiffany Huffington-Steele.” FWIW, I didn’t get tipped. ---
**Author:** ![Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tyrrell_mcallister/32/16772_2.png) [@Tyrrell\_McAllister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tyrrell_McAllister)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/13 "2009-04-25T14:12:44Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#): > > That’s nice that it’s a good-sized sample. > > I don’t see where statistics has anything to do with this. > > Please explain how a “good-sized sample” with **less than half** of the respondents leaning a particular way becomes representative of the **entire population** that sample is supposedly representing leaning that same way? It is routine to suppress quantifiers such as “some” or “all” when one has given precise numbers that make the appropriate quantifier clear. In this case, the OP provided the number 40.9%, which makes giving the quantifier “some” redundant. If I give height statistics for men and women, and conclude with the observation that “men are taller than women”, it would be a perverse misreading to interpret this as “_all_ men are taller than _all_ women.” ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/14 "2009-04-25T14:16:35Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Was it a write-in question or did the interviewee simply tick a box? 'Cause I could see a Korean simply ticking every box that didn’t say “Korean”. According to the [http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/) site the question was > [@](#): > > On this list are various groups of people. Could you please sort out any that you would not like to have as neighbors? So the respondents (see also the other responses quoted by **John H** seem to have tended to tick the list items that correlated with non-Korean ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/15 "2009-04-25T14:28:44Z")
> [@tschild](#): > > According to the [http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.com/) site the question was > > So the respondents (see also the other responses quoted by **John H** seem to have tended to tick the list items that correlated with non-Korean ethnicity. In the words of Chris Rock: “Black people don’t hate Jews. Black people hate _white people_! We don’t got time to dice white people up into little groups!” ---
**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/16 "2009-04-25T14:30:49Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > FWIW, I didn’t get tipped. No surprise here. Question A038 asks _“Here is a list of qualities that children can be encouraged to learn at home. Which, if any, do you consider to be especially important?”_ Korean respondents selected “thrift saving money and things”, i.e. being cheap, at a higher rate (67.5%, n = 1200) than any of the other nations in the survey. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/17 "2009-04-25T14:41:18Z")
Here’s one possible reason: While there is no substantial Jewish presence in Korea, South Korea is about 25% Christian (compared to 23% Buddhist, a bit lopsided for an East Asian country), and it’s a weird, enthusiastic, disconnected-from-the-Western-mainstream kind of Christianity. They have the scriptural anger at Jews for having killed Christ, but this isn’t balanced with any kind of practical day-to-day association with Jewish neighbors, business associates or academics. They haven’t heard of Fran Drescher, but they have heard of Pontius Pilate. Their awareness of Jews is a bit like Americans’ awareness of Gypsies: they’ve heard awful things about them and there’s no one around to dispute it. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/18 "2009-04-25T15:15:47Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > They haven’t heard of Fran Drescher, but they have heard of Pontius Pilate. Their awareness of Jews is a bit like Americans’ awareness of Gypsies: they’ve heard awful things about them and there’s no one around to dispute it. Pilate wasn’t a Jew. He was a Roman. Better to go with Herod. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/19 "2009-04-25T21:16:01Z")
All I can say is that my step-mom seems to like my dad ok! ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304/20 "2009-04-25T21:47:38Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > South Korea is about 25% Christian (compared to 23% Buddhist,. So that’s about half the population. What are the other half? 😕 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-koreans-hate-jews/494304.md?page=2)