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But Jewish respondents reported the lowest degree of discrimination and the highest level of comfort on the job.

It is not clear from the study how many of those Jews surveyed are religiously observant.

The exploratory study conducted telephone interviews in the spring of 1999 among a sample designed to overrepresent five religious minorities in the United States: Judaism (102 people), Islam (102), Hinduism (107), Buddhism (103) and Shintoism (12).

Those questioned also included 188 Christians and 28 people who did not identify with any of the above-mentioned religions.

Part of the reason for these findings about Jews is that most of them have been living in the United States for at least two generations, said Georgette Bennett, president of the Tanenbaum Center.

"Jews have been here longer than a great percentage of the sample and they tend to be assimilated into the larger culture," Bennett said.

Forty-two percent of those surveyed were foreign born. Regardless of religion, American-born workers were more comfortable on the job than foreign-born workers.

Respondents were questioned about their workplace experience on a number of issues: comfort level, employers' response to complaints of religious bias, company policies regarding religious observance and religious discrimination, treatment by fellow employees and its effect on job performance, and concerns about religious and racial bias in the workplace in general.