“The first Jewish person I’ve ever met”: Insights from a field study on Jewish–non-Jewish contact in Germany

Abstract

What happens when non-Jewish Germans, most of whom do not know any Jews personally, meet a Jew? We present field data from a nationwide intervention program that promotes dialogue between Jewish volunteers and non-Jewish people in Germany. Applying a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed responses from N = 385 attendees who served as initiators of the intervention for a larger group. The initiators shared their insights into the opinion of the group regarding the intervention, along with the feedback they received from the group. Compared to before the intervention, the attitudes of intervention attendees toward Jews were perceived by initiators as significantly more positive both up to one month after the intervention, and at the end of the year in which the intervention took place. Mediation analyses indicated that perspective-taking (rather than increased intergroup knowledge or reduced anxiety) was the most important intermediate factor for this outcome. A qualitative content analysis corroborated the primacy of perspective-taking, and shed light on further factors contributing to a (non-)successful intervention. We discuss the relevance of direct contact experiences in a context in which interactions between non-Jewish and Jewish people are limited but narratives of historical intergroup crimes are omnipresent.