Study: 75.5% of Jewish Workers See Inconsistent DEI Response to Antisemitism

New research released Tuesday, Oct. 27, indicates that 75.5 percent of Jewish employees believe their employers apply Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) strategies inconsistently when addressing antisemitism. The findings appear in a report titled “Yes, But… Antisemitism and the Limits of Workplace Inclusion,” produced by Pearn Kandola, a business psychology firm based in the United Kingdom.

Pearn Kandola, co-founded by Professor Binna Kandola, specializes in occupational psychology and bias training for corporate and public sector clients. This study builds on the firm’s 2024 research, which documented a nearly 50 percent rise in workplace antisemitic incidents following the October 7, 2023, events in Israel.

The new investigation followed a series of webinars where Jewish participants described a lack of responsiveness from their organizations' diversity teams. Researchers expanded these anecdotal reports into a broader study to determine if the experiences reflected a systemic pattern rather than isolated incidents.

The report identifies organizational listening as a central challenge. It argues that providing formal reporting channels is insufficient if institutions lack the motivation to interpret and act on employee feedback. When concerns are minimized, employees often withdraw, leading to low complaint numbers that falsely reassure corporate leadership that no underlying problem exists.

Professor Kandola stated that many Jewish employees feel overlooked by the personnel responsible for promoting inclusion. She noted that standard models of discrimination often rely on frameworks of power and privilege, which can exclude Jewish workers who are frequently stereotyped as wealthy or influential. Consequently, antisemitism is sometimes minimized or explained away as a matter of religious disagreement or political conflict rather than racial exclusion.

Interviews revealed several recurring organizational responses, including denial through silence, such as omitting references to Jews in Holocaust Memorial Day events. Other patterns included repositioning individuals who raise concerns as the wrongdoers and using arguments about merit to suggest that Jewish employees do not require inclusion support. The study also highlighted how antisemitism is often reframed as a generic religious matter or an interpersonal disagreement.

Participants described the complexity of Jewish identity, which encompasses ethnicity and peoplehood in addition to religion. Some reported that employee resource groups were used to contain antisemitism as a niche issue rather than a systemic one. Kandola advised organizations to examine the assumptions underpinning their DEI work and to professionalize the field by ensuring practitioners understand the distinct history of antisemitism.

The report offers six recommendations for leaders, including independent reviews of diversity functions, separating representation metrics from inclusion experiences, and clarifying the role of employee resource groups. It also urges organizations to build genuine listening capabilities into their reporting structures and to routinely examine their own underlying biases.