Can Convenience Samples be Trusted? Lessons From the Survey of Jews in Europe, 2012

Abstract

Jews living in the Diaspora form a very small proportion of the total population in all countries without an exception. This situation (‘the rarity problem’) presents a major obstacle to survey taking among Jews: Jews are nearly impossible to capture in numbers conducive to statistical analysis in regular national sample surveys. Various probability-based sampling methods have been applied in the context of Jewish surveys. The key development in the field of Jewish social surveys in Europe, however, is the shift from probability sampling to methods that are reliant on non-probability sampling, either partially or exclusively. Can the insights produced by such samples be trusted? To what extent can they be understood, by academics and policy makers, as a true representation of the realities lived through by contemporary European Jewish populations? These questions are empirically investigated using the FRA 2012 survey - the first cross-European survey of Jewish perceptions and experiences of antisemitism conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and polling agency IPSOS Mori in 2012.