The devil does not wear horns, a red cape and carry a pitchfork. That would make him far too easy to recognize.
In his 1942 book The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis imagined a senior demon, Screwtape, instructing his nephew Wormwood on how to corrupt an ordinary man. The secret was not some spectacular act of evil, but a succession of seemingly harmless compromises.
“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Lewis was particularly perceptive about politics. Screwtape advised Wormwood to encourage either extreme patriotism or extreme pacifism. The ideology was unimportant. What mattered was making political allegiance more important than moral conviction.
“Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man.”
Lewis wasn’t warning that people would choose the wrong political ideology. He was warning that they would make their ideology the measure of right and wrong.
In 2026, Screwtape might find his work considerably easier.
Consider Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed. The winning smiles, easy confidence and appealing promises of affordable housing, healthcare and social justice. Their supporters feel they are participating in something noble, standing up for the poor and vulnerable, making the world a better place.
But what happens when the people delivering that appealing message embrace allies who traffic in antisemitism and use such language themselves?
In Michigan, El-Sayed campaigned with Hasan Piker, whose statements about Jews have drawn widespread condemnation. Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC subsequently promoted an advertisement blaming American support for Israel for rising grocery prices and other economic hardships. Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens called the advertisement antisemitic and demanded that El-Sayed condemn it.
El-Sayed said the advertisement was produced independently of his campaign and that he disagreed with its contents. But when Stevens continued pressing the issue, she was told to stay away from campaign events. She ultimately endorsed Republican Mike Rogers.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called her decision a ““despicable betrayal,” and other Democrats joined the denunciations. The political establishment was more interested in punishing Stevens for breaking party ranks than confronting antisemitism.
That is precisely the danger Lewis identified.
First, supporters overlook objectionable rhetoric because they believe in the larger cause. Then they defend the politicians who tolerate it. Eventually, they attack the people who refuse to make the same exceptions.
Each compromise makes the next one easier.
This is not simply the familiar horseshoe theory, in which the far left and far right meet at the extremes. Tucker Carlson and Hasan Piker occupy different political worlds, yet both have promoted troubling rhetoric about Jews and become mouthpieces for El-Sayed. Lewis understood the deeper problem: political allegiance can corrupt moral judgment from either direction.
And here is where his story takes on a new dimension in 2026.
In The Screwtape Letters, Wormwood was assigned to corrupt one man. Today, political movements and social media can turn individual moral compromise into the mass propagation of moral compromise. Supporters rationalize objectionable rhetoric, persuade others to accept it and reward those who join them. Each newly persuaded follower can recruit thousands more.
Evil no longer advances one conscience at a time. It multiplies.
Lewis’s Patient ultimately escaped the demons. But in today’s politics, the danger is that the Patient never realizes he has become Wormwood himself.
When you support a Nazi, you are not clean when leaving the polling station. “Allegiance to party” has a ring of Nazi Germany for a reason.
Smiling Democratic politicians rally behind Abdul El-Sayed after fellow Democrat Haley Stevens endorses Republican opponent for Senate because El-Sayed’s campaign was awash in public antisemitism
In 1942, as Nazi Germany was systematically murdering Europe’s Jews, C. S. Lewis published The Screwtape Letters. Four years later, with the horrors of the Holocaust exposed, George Orwell published Politics and the English Language.
Both men had witnessed the rise of totalitarianism and the extraordinary power of evil. Years of propaganda, normalized antisemitism and progressively discriminatory laws had helped prepare the ground for the unthinkable.
Both recognized a powerful weapon in that transformation: language.
Lewis imagined a senior demon, Screwtape, instructing his nephew on how to corrupt an ordinary man. His advice was simple: “Jargon, not argument, is your best ally.”
Argument invited people to consider whether something was true. Jargon supplied conclusions without requiring evidence, allowing people to accept ideas without examining them.
Orwell understood the other side of the process. Political language, he wrote, could be used “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” He took this further: “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
Orwell understood how language could disguise evil. Lewis understood how jargon could stop people from looking beneath the disguise. Together, they described how people could gradually surrender independent judgment without realizing it.
Consider how the vocabulary surrounding Jews and Israel has evolved.
Jews, historically portrayed as secretly wealthy and powerful, are again described through their supposed influence and financial clout. Zionists become a sinister political force rather than supporters of Jewish national self-determination. Israelis become settler-colonists, their very presence treated as an offense. Violence against them becomes resistance, while intifada is presented as merely shaking off oppression, obscuring its history of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks.
Democratic Socialists of America group for Palestinian Arabs decides that no “settler” can be considered a “civilian” and can therefore not legally defend themselves from “resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves”
Each expression changes the moral framework. Jews become manipulators. Israelis become intruders. Their attackers become freedom fighters.
Universities gave these interpretations intellectual standing through theories of settler-colonialism, oppression and decolonization. The United Nations lent political authority to similar narratives, declaring Zionism a form of racism in 1975, a resolution it revoked in 1991. Academic discussions, international resolutions and media coverage reinforced one another, lending repeated characterizations the appearance of established truth.
The language appeared in ordinary journalism as well.
In 2021, The New York Times described a “powerful Orthodox Jewish community.” In 2022, its coverage of congressional redistricting again emphasized Jewish “power,” clout and influence. Both stories revived an old association between Jews, money and political control without explicitly arguing that Jews controlled anything.
The same technique could reshape perceptions of violence.
In May 2019, the Times described a Palestinian Arab sniper attack that wounded two Israelis as “a violent but localized expression of Palestinian impatience with Israel’s failure to alleviate dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza.” A terrorist attack was transformed into an expression of impatience, while Israel’s supposed failure to address humanitarian conditions became the explanation for violence directed against Israelis. Absolution via inversion.
As I wrote at the time: “So sublime, you swallowed it whole and didn’t choke on it.” The justification was embedded in the sentence without ever needing to be argued.
By October 7, 2023, the vocabulary was firmly established.
When Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdered civilians, committed sexual violence and took hostages into Gaza, some activists and commentators immediately reached for the familiar language of “resistance,” “liberation” and “decolonization.” This was the lexicon of the Ivy League: rape could be rationalized as resistance; murder could be understood as liberation; and the victims could be recast as colonizers.
April 2022October 2023
The atrocities should have challenged the assumptions. Instead, the lexicon already had declared the victim and oppressor.
What Lewis and Orwell understood was that the most powerful narrative is not the one that wins an argument. It is the one that makes the argument unnecessary.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called Congresswoman Haley Stevens’ endorsement of Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan’s Senate race a “despicable betrayal.” Stevens refused to support Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed after he campaigned with Hasan Piker, a streamer who has spread antisemitic rhetoric, including comparing a heavily Jewish Michigan suburb to a KKK neighborhood.
Antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker campaigning with Abdul El Sayed
Stevens also condemned an antisemitic advertisement produced by Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC that blamed Americans’ grocery bills on Israel and falsely suggested that American taxpayers finance Israeli health care. El-Sayed’s campaign disclaimed responsibility for the ad without condemning its message.
Schumer supported Stevens in the Democratic primary but rallied behind El-Sayed after his victory. Now he attacks Stevens for putting her principles ahead of party loyalty.
Don’t be angry at Schumer. He’s just doing his job – the real job that is not discussed in polite company.
Schumer’s business is electing Democrats, protecting Democratic seats and building a Democratic majority. He tells Jewish voters that he stands with them and New Yorkers that he fights for their interests. But when those interests collide with those of the Democratic Party, his priorities become clear. His loyalty is to his party. Voters are the means by which he keeps it in power.
NY Senator Chuck Schumer
By way of comparison, consider Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Weingarten speaks constantly about children and education. But she doesn’t run a children’s advocacy organization but an enormous and powerful teachers union. Her job is to protect teachers, increase their compensation and defend their working conditions. When the interests of teachers and students align, everyone benefits. When they conflict, nobody should be surprised which side she takes.
The problem isn’t that Weingarten advocates for teachers. It’s that she presents their interests as though they are necessarily the interests of children. They are not.
New York City public schools spend roughly $34,700 per student annually, yet only about half of students in grades three through eight demonstrate proficiency in reading and 57% in mathematics. A recent New York Post investigation revealed that 99.6% of students were promoted in the 2024–25 school year, despite enormous gaps in academic achievement.
Teachers find it easier to promote students rather than educate them. Parents receive reassuring report cards while children are denied the skills they need to succeed. Teachers get little pushback and the union protects their failures.
Don’t be angry at Weingarten for protecting incompetent teachers; that’s part of her job. Be angry at her for failing to educate millions of kids and denying them skills for the future.
The same applies to Schumer.
The Democratic Party has increasingly accommodated the Democratic Socialists of America and politicians aligned with its ideology, even as their positions clash with those of traditional Democrats. Schumer’s embrace of El-Sayed illustrates a party establishment willing to tolerate troubling political associations to preserve its coalition.
The handling of President Joe Biden’s decline exposed another failure. Democratic leaders defended his fitness for office while concerns mounted, prioritizing their political interests over a candid accounting of the president’s condition. Only his disastrous 2024 debate made the issue impossible to avoid.
Protecting the party has taken precedence over the nation’s leadership, diminishing public trust and leaving America more vulnerable. Joe Biden, Abdul El Sayed, teachers unions. They are all part of the rot of power and party loyalty over principles and patriotism.
Whatever Haley Stevens other political calculations, she refused to place party loyalty above her objections to El-Sayed’s antisemitic campaign. Schumer called that a betrayal because, from his perspective, it was. A betrayal of HIS job as a political hack.
But betrayal of a political party is not necessarily betrayal of the public.
Schumer’s success in electing Democrats is not the same as making Americans safer and more prosperous. Weingarten’s success in winning better contracts for teachers is not the same as educating children.
There is no question that America becomes weaker when its leaders protect political power rather than confront failure, and when voters reward loyalty instead of demanding results that you care about.
Schumer knows whom he serves. Weingarten knows whom she serves.
The question is whether voters and parents understand that they are not necessarily the ones being served despite the smooth talk and lies they are fed.
Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens did something extraordinary on November 1, 2026. Two days before the election, she endorsed Republican Mike Rogers over her own party’s Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, who had defeated her in Michigan’s Democratic primary.
She explained why.
“We have to stand with country. We can’t stand with hate. We can’t stand with Hasan Piker.”
Stevens specifically condemned Piker, warning about his influence on college campuses and the hatred being spread to young people.
Piker is no obscure activist. The internationally followed livestreamer reaches millions online, appears at universities and campaigns alongside prominent Democrats, including El-Sayed at an April rally at the University of Michigan.
Days before Stevens’ endorsement, Piker had compared West Bloomfield, a heavily Jewish Detroit suburb, to a Ku Klux Klan neighborhood. “It’s racial supremacy. It’s Jewish supremacy,” he declared.
This was the same community where a synagogue and preschool had been targeted in an attempted terrorist attack earlier in the year.
Piker has a long history of stoking Jew hatred and had previously described Israeli and Orthodox Jews as “inbred” and “psychopaths,” compared Jews in Judea and Samaria to the KKK and repeatedly invoked Jewish supremacy. His rhetoric had traveled well beyond Michigan, gaining enormous audiences and legitimacy through appearances alongside political candidates.
El-Sayed had proudly campaigned with Piker before distancing himself from some of his statements. Another controversy involved Cenk Uygur, whose advertisement linked rising grocery prices to American assistance to Israel, even though annual military spending to it is less than 5% of what America spends on its military abroad, and has sent six times as much money to Ukraine for its defensive war against Russia as the US sent to Israel for its defensive war against genocidal Palestinian Arabs. Stevens condemned the advertisement as antisemitic. El-Sayed only disavowed its message.
Stevens nevertheless concluded that she could not support him.
The newspaper described Stevens as “still absorbing her primary loss” and feeling “scorned” by El-Sayed’s failure to include her in campaign events. It quoted a Democratic operative blaming the spectacle on “one person”—Stevens.
One person? What about the Jews who were being attacked?
The Times declared that “at the root of the disagreement” was American policy toward Israel. It detailed AIPAC’s spending against El-Sayed, Stevens’ attachment to Israel, her Jewish fiancé, his donations to AIPAC and her consideration of converting to Judaism.
Yet it never named Hasan Piker, whom Stevens repeatedly condemned, or Cenk Uygur, whose advertisement had sparked another confrontation. Uygur became merely “an ally.”
Most remarkably, the only time the word “antisemitism” or “antisemitic” appeared was when this so-tarred overly sensitive person said that “she viewed” the ad as antisemitic when in fact it was widely viewed as antisemitic, even among Democratic politicians.
The newspaper had plenty to say about Stevens’ feelings, Israel, AIPAC and Jewish connections. It could not bring itself to name the hatred at the center of her objections.
Instead, the Times described the rupture as reflecting “a major fissure coursing through the Democratic Party about what its relationship with Israel and Jewish donors should be.”
Jewish donors.
Not Jews being attacked. Not the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric. Jewish donors.
Piker himself had accused Stevens of being “weirdly obsessed with Israel” and having been “paid handsomely for this strange obsession.” The Times did not repeat his accusation, but its framing likewise directed attention toward Jewish money and influence rather than the hatred Stevens condemned.
This is how antisemitism becomes mainstream. The New York Times did not need to endorse Piker’s hatred to reinforce its underlying prejudices. By reducing objections to antisemitism to hurt feelings and Jewish concerns about safety to money and influence, the newspaper helped normalize the very hostility Stevens was protesting.
The Times was no longer simply reporting on attacks against Jews. It had become a participant in perpetuating them.
Hasan Piker recently compared the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of West Bloomfield to a Ku Klux Klan neighborhood, calling its supposed supremacist attitude “identical” to that of the KKK. The influential political streamer was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for his vile, antisemitic comparison.
But Piker did not invent the accusation of Jewish supremacy. Over decades, language once associated with political extremists and provocateurs gained legitimacy through academics, journalists and Jewish organizations, moving from criticism of Israel to accusations against American Jewish communities.
From Provocation to Political Argument
Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz notoriously used the expression “Judeo-Nazis” in criticizing Israeli conduct around the 1982 Lebanon War. Hamas incorporated conspiracy theories from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion into its 1988 founding charter, portraying Jews as manipulating international finance, media and world events. These were distinct episodes that helped establish the historical backdrop.
A modern wave emerged at the end of the century. In 1998, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei compared Zionists to Nazis. In 1999, Israeli Jewish historian Ilan Pappé described early Zionist settlement as establishing “a society based on Jewish supremacy.”
During the Second Intifada, the terminology appeared across ideological extremes. Columbia University professor Joseph Massad delivered a February 2002 lecture titled On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy. That same year, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke published Jewish Supremacism, promoting conspiracy theories about Jewish control of world affairs. Palestinian Arab BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti accused even the Israeli left of perpetuating Jewish supremacy in 2007.
These were provocateurs and political figures operating from sharply different ideological positions. Their accusations demonstrated the flexibility of the terminology, but its use remained particularly associated with contentious political movements.
Turning the Accusation Around
The collapse of the Obama–Kerry Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative in April 2014 was followed by another Gaza war that summer. The language soon acquired a new political purpose: turning accusations of antisemitism and racism back against those making them.
In November 2014, Jewish American journalist Max Blumenthal faced accusations of antisemitism and efforts to prevent him from speaking in Germany. Rather than simply defend his criticism of Israel, he accused American Jewish organizations of using antisemitism allegations to protect their privilege. He argued that American Jews had generally displaced WASPs as a new elite and declared that “pro-Israel organizations on American college campuses are functioning as White Students Unions.”
The target was no longer simply Israeli policy. American Jewish-associated organizations were being portrayed as defenders of racial privilege, reversing the accusation of antisemitism into an accusation of Jewish racism.
American white nationalist Richard Spencer employed a related reversal. Challenged over the antisemitism surrounding the August 2017 Charlottesville rally, he described himself as a “white Zionist,” comparing his desire for a white homeland with Jewish nationalism. Spencer had used similar arguments earlier, but Charlottesville gave the analogy greater public attention.
Naomi Dann of Jewish Voice for Peace responded in The Forward that Spencer’s comparison contained a “kernel of truth,” while acknowledging differences between the movements. Her article asked whether Spencer might be right about Israel. ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt answered with an article titled Zionism Is Nothing Like White Supremacy.
The comparison had become a political weapon. Blumenthal used it to turn accusations of antisemitism against his critics; Spencer used it to defend white nationalism; and anti-Zionist activists found in the analogy a new argument against Zionism.
From Accusation to Institutional Authority
January 2021 marked another turning point.
B’Tselem, one of Israel’s “human-rights” organizations, published a report titled A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid. Its argument concerned the political system governing Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.
The following day, Jewish American political commentator Norman Finkelstein, a Princeton-educated author with an international following, explicitly urged broader use of the expression. He argued that calling Israel a “Jewish supremacist state” would “compellingly resonate in public discourse.”
Finkelstein went further, recommending that advocates routinely refer to Benjamin Netanyahu as a Jewish-supremacist prime minister and identify the Anti-Defamation League and British Board of Deputies as supporters of a Jewish-supremacist state. He explicitly invoked B’Tselem’s standing to defend the terminology.
Other Jewish voices added their institutional reputations. In February 2022, the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace declared that Israel’s system of control rested on “the idea of Jewish supremacy.” In March 2023, Peter Beinart, the former editor of The New Republic, CUNY professor and Jewish Currents editor-at-large, called for legal equality rather than Jewish supremacy. Jewish Currents publisher Daniel May discussed the terminology in 2024, while Independent Jewish Voices Canada issued a declaration opposing Jewish supremacy that November.
These were rabbis, Jewish professors, editors, authors and organizations with established audiences. Their participation helped move the terminology beyond fringe polemics into recognizable institutional and intellectual discourse.
The criticism also extended into Jewish communal life. In June 2025, former Jewish Currents editor-in-chief Arielle Angel described a “voracious rot” infecting Jewish institutions. Her argument prompted concern from another Jewish left-wing editor that such sweeping criticism risked making Judaism itself, rather than Zionism, appear to be the problem.
When Jews Become the KKK
Piker had already described violent Israeli settlers as “Jewish KKK brigades” in 2024. In 2025, during an interview with Representative Rashida Tlaib, he compared liberal Zionism to liberal Nazism. By October 2026, he no longer needed Israeli settlers or Zionist ideology as his target. A Jewish neighborhood in Michigan would suffice.
Over the decades, the accusation of Jewish supremacy underwent a remarkable transformation. It moved from the political fringes into respected institutions, from jihadists of Hamas and Iran to prominent Jewish voices, and from a defensive response to accusations of racism into an affirmative charge of racism. Criticism of conduct during wars and political conflicts increasingly became a judgment about the character of Zionism, Jewish institutions and ultimately Jews themselves.
Governments can change policies, armies can end wars, and political movements can change direction. But a people accused of being inherently supremacist cannot reform their way out of the accusation. Their identity has become the offense.
That is a conspiracy theory made manifest, and it will kill Jews around the world.
Four-part series tracking the root of attacks on Jews is tied to believing in conspiracy theories:
What brings together a far-left streamer, a right-wing nationalist and a progressive Democrat running for the United States Senate? Hostility toward Israel and Jews.
Abdul El-Sayed calls his campaign Michigan First. A more fitting slogan would be El-Sayed First or Jews Never.
El-Sayed campaigned alongside Hasan Piker, the influential left-wing streamer who compared heavily Jewish West Bloomfield, Michigan, to a Ku Klux Klan neighborhood. Piker took aim at a Jewish community in a state already shaken by an attack on Temple Israel earlier this year, in which El Sayed dismissed the antisemitism of the attacker saying “hurt people hurt people.”
Hasan Piker stumping with Abdul El Sayed
El-Sayed also featured Tucker Carlson, the right-wing nationalist who has promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories and given a platform to Holocaust revisionism, in campaign advertising attacking Republican Mike Rogers.
Cenk Uygur‘s Rebellion PAC produced an advertisement blaming Americans’ economic hardships on support for Israel, recycling the antisemitic conspiracy that Jews and their state are responsible for ordinary people’s suffering.
Different political camps, united by a common target – Jews and the Jewish State – urging voters to elect Abdul El Sayed to be a senator in Michigan.
Not every Democrat was willing to look away.
Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens, who endorsed El-Sayed after losing the primary, demanded that he remove the Carlson advertisement. Senator Elissa Slotkin condemned the PAC commercial. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged El-Sayed’s opposition to a Jewish state.
CNN commentator Van Jones called the PAC advertisement anti-Jewish hate, warning of the historical consequences of blaming Jews for society’s problems. Jones refused to choose which minority deserved protection based on the politics of the moment. His standard was the same for both.
Yet Stevens was reportedly asked to stay away from El-Sayed’s campaign events. Supporting the Democratic nominee was apparently insufficient. She was also expected to remain silent.
Who gave Democrats the authority to decide that Jews must sacrifice their security for the party’s political ambitions?
Democrats like Senator Chris Murphy have turned the argument upside down, branding criticism of El-Sayed as Islamophobia while failing to confront the antisemitism surrounding his campaign. The candidate becomes the victim, his critics become the bigots, and Jewish Americans are expected to remain silent.
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell urged Democrats not to let the controversy surrounding Hasan Piker divide the party ahead of November. Party unity was apparently more important than confronting the rhetoric that provoked the controversy.
The burden has been reversed. Instead of demanding that El-Sayed answer for the extremists he embraces, Democratic leaders are asking Jewish Americans to explain why they cannot simply accept them. The candidate’s associations become secondary; the Jews who object become the political problem.
Democrats have spent years insisting that politicians are responsible for the extremists they embrace, applying that standard relentlessly to Donald Trump. Why should El-Sayed be exempt?
If a politician embraces / welcomes / ignores the notorious bigots to get elected, why should anyone vote for him? If a political party demands that Jews tolerate antisemitism to secure victory, why should any minority trust that party to defend its rights?
A party that unites around hatred of Jews is not a party worth defending, voting for or belonging to. It is not even a party worth preserving.
If saving democracy requires sacrificing the rights and security of Jews, what exactly is being saved?
The Binding of Isaac (Akeidat Yitzchak) stands at the heart of Judaism. Abraham and Isaac ascended Mount Moriah together, prepared to sacrifice everything in obedience to God. Their devotion became a lasting source of merit for future generations, invoked in Jewish prayers for divine mercy.
The ram sacrificed in Isaac’s place is remembered every Rosh Hashanah through the sounding of the shofar, traditionally made from a ram’s horn. Christianity interprets the binding as foreshadowing Jesus’s sacrifice, while Islamic tradition often identifies Ishmael rather than Isaac as the intended offering. Across all three Abrahamic religions, the story remains a defining encounter between Abraham, his son and God.
But what if another sacrifice has been overlooked?
Consider the familiar biblical story through the surrealist art of Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), a man whose life was shaped by the death of a brother he never knew.
Salvador Dalí: Living in Another Child’s Shadow
Salvador Dalí was born nine months after the death of his older brother, also named Salvador, a name shared by their father. His parents took him to his brother’s grave and told him he was the dead child’s reincarnation. He grew up struggling to establish an identity separate from the brother he had replaced.
His beloved mother died when he was sixteen, devastating the young artist. His relationship with his authoritarian father deteriorated into bitter estrangement. Death, substitution and troubled family relationships became recurring themes in Dalí’s life and art.
For Dalí, the notion of one child taking the place of another was deeply personal.
The Ram (The Spectral Cow), 1928
In 1928, at just 24 years old, Dalí painted The Ram (The Spectral Cow), an early work in his exploration of Surrealism. The painting recalls the mysterious compositions of Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), placing seemingly unrelated objects in a strange, theatrical setting.
Surrealist artists drew heavily on the theories of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who viewed dreams as windows into unconscious fears and desires. The artists invited viewers to become dream interpreters, examining unusual objects and their relationships to discover hidden meanings.
Dalí’s painting offers an intriguing puzzle.
The Ram (The Spectral Cow), 1928 by Salvador Dali, hangs in the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL
An enormous bird occupies the left side of the painting, balanced by a skeletal ram on the right. A strange cloud rises between them, while a mysterious heavenly orb watches over the scene. A tiny dead bird lies almost unnoticed on the ground.
What connects these objects?
Reading the Painting
Consider first the enormous bird dominating the painting. Its wing resembles a giant five-fingered hand reaching toward the heavens and away from the activity unfolding to the right and below. The bird’s head and body occupy the center of the composition, partially hidden by a strange, dark cloud. Its gaze appears fixed on the mysterious orb above.
Is the bird praying? Pleading? And what is it seeking?
The bird’s enormous head is balanced by a gaunt ram, skeletal and seemingly more dead than alive. The two creatures share hollow eye sockets and small curved features: the bird’s beak and the ram’s horn.
But they are looking in different directions.
While the bird gazes toward heaven, the ram stares at the bird’s swollen belly. Curious wisps of hair mark the space between them, drawing our attention to their point of contact. The ram seems transfixed by the bird’s body, seemingly oblivious to the enormous head towering above it.
Why would Dalí have the ram stare at the bird’s belly rather than its face?
The mysterious cloud separating them is equally curious. It conceals much of the enormous bird’s head and body, while the ram’s head barely touches its edge. One creature seems to disappear into the cloud, while the other remains almost entirely outside it.
The cloud itself appears divided in two. A darker mass rises from the ground and envelops the bird on the left, while lighter mist occupies the ram’s side. The dark cloud stretches diagonally upward, nearly touching the heavenly orb, while the lighter cloud obscures its lower edge.
The effect makes the orb itself almost drawn downward, peering through the mist at the mysterious activity below.
And what do we notice as our eyes descend?
Just outside the cloud, a tiny dead bird lies on the ground beneath the ram, seemingly staring upward. It is so small that it barely registers in the composition.
Our eyes have traveled from the enormous bird on the left, full of movement and reaching toward heaven, to the almost invisible lifeless creature on the ground. The two birds appear strikingly different in size and vitality, yet their placement invites us to consider a connection.
Could the tiny dead bird be the fate of the enormous one?
The Child Who Replaced Another
Dalí knew very well the idea of substituting one child for another. He was the replacement for a brother he never knew, born into a family still mourning the loss of its first son.
How might such an artist have viewed the biblical matriarch Sarah?
Sarah had waited decades to bear Isaac, the son through whom God promised Abraham’s covenant would continue. Yet Isaac was not Abraham’s first son. Ishmael, born to Hagar, was already part of the family.
Sarah feared for Isaac’s safety and demanded that Abraham cast out Ishmael and his mother. In protecting Isaac, she effectively made him the substitute for Ishmael, removing Abraham’s first son from the household to protect her own. She was the ultimate protective mother, willing to break apart Abraham’s family to keep her son safe.
Yet in one of the most consequential stories in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Sarah is entirely absent.
When Abraham takes Isaac to Mount Moriah, Sarah never gets to raise her hand toward heaven, plead for her son or beg Abraham to stop. The woman who so wanted a child and had fought to protect Isaac from his brother has no voice when his father prepares to sacrifice him.
Where was Sarah? What happened to the mother whose entire life had been devoted to securing Isaac’s future?
Deciphering the Dream
Now we can understand the mysterious cloud at the center of Dalí’s painting.
It is the altar, rising from the ground as smoke toward heaven.
The lighter smoke ascends above the ram, seemingly carrying its sacrifice to God. The white smoke almost looks like a nose inhaling the ram, signifying the pleasing aroma of an accepted offering. The ram has taken Isaac’s place, preserving the life of Abraham’s beloved son.
But what is hidden in the darker smoke?
Consider the enormous bird reaching toward heaven. Its swollen belly recalls Sarah, who waited until old age to bear Isaac. Its outstretched wing resembles a hand raised in desperate prayer, while the skeletal ram stares directly at the womb that brought Isaac into the world.
The bird is Sarah.
And what of the tiny dead bird beneath the ram?
It is Sarah after the Akeidah.
The Torah records that Abraham returned from Mount Moriah, while Isaac’s fate after the binding is left unstated until he reappears later in the narrative. The ram had been sacrificed, and God’s promise to Abraham reaffirmed.
But the next Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, opens with Sarah’s death.
Jewish tradition has long connected these events. Rashi (1040–1105), drawing on earlier midrash, explains that Sarah died upon hearing news of Isaac’s near-sacrifice. The shock of learning what had almost happened to her beloved son caused her death.
Here, the painting’s dark smoke conceals the death of Sarah, while its lighter smoke carries the ram toward heaven. The enormous bird reaching upward and the tiny lifeless creature below become two images of the same mother, before and after the Akeidah.
The ram was sacrificed in Isaac’s place. Sarah died because Isaac was nearly sacrificed.
The Voice of Sarah
For thousands of years, Jews have sounded the ram’s horn on Rosh Hashanah, recalling Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and God’s mercy in sparing him. The ram became a permanent symbol of devotion, its sacrifice remembered with every blast of the shofar.
But Sarah’s sacrifice presents a more troubling question. Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac, and Isaac was spared. Sarah received no command, made no choice and was given no opportunity to intervene. The mother who had spent her life protecting her son may have been the only person to die because of the Akeidah.
Jewish tradition celebrates Abraham’s obedience and Isaac’s willingness. Yet through Dalí’s surrealist lens, the story also becomes one of a mother whose devotion was no less profound, but whose suffering remained outside the biblical narrative.
Perhaps the shofar’s haunting cry recalls more than the ram that died. Perhaps it also gives voice to Sarah, whose sacrifice was never requested, whose consent was never sought, and whose life was never spared.
Part four, Summary: The root cause of most antisemitic attacks comes from a belief in conspiracy theories. There are limited ways of combatting it.
Israel has become a catalyst for people already primed to see the world through conspiracy theories. They imagine Jews acting as a single force, secretly controlling media, finance, and governments for their own benefit. Israel gives this old story a contemporary focus: anger at a Jewish state becomes suspicion of Jews everywhere.
Politicians and entertainers help give these ideas a public voice. Rep. Rashida Tlaib spoke of “the same people” profiting “from Gaza to Detroit”; and Rep. Ilhan Omar dismissed support for Israel as “all about the Benjamins.” Musician Ye claimed “Jewish people have owned the Black voice”; and Roger Waters called the “Jewish lobby” extraordinarily powerful in the music business. Actor Mel Gibson blamed Jews for “all the wars in the world,” while French comedian Dieudonné called Jews a “sect.”
Social media carries these claims to young audiences. The United Nations give them institutional authority when antisemitic theories enter official reports. The three-part series traced that path:
The next question is harder: how do we stop conspiracy theories from taking hold? The evidence offers little reason for easy confidence. A 2026 meta-analysis of 56 study samples found only a small average effect from interventions, with much of the underlying research carrying a high risk of bias. Still, “fact-checking conspiracy claims,” was viewed favorably.
Prebunking – teaching people to recognize manipulation before they encounter it – is one promising approach according to the ADL, but its success is limited. A classroom study found that a 45-minute lesson presenting antisemitism as a recurring conspiracy reduced students’ endorsement of several antisemitic tropes. The finding offers a practical lead, not a settled solution.
Conspiracy theories about Jews have endured by adapting to each new crisis. In a post-COVID world shaped by distrust, social media incentives, and increasingly capable Artificial Intelligence, they are likely to find new audiences and spread faster.
This is Part Three of a series examining the surge in antisemitism: Conspiracy theories magnified at the United Nations
In May 2021, Pakistan, acting on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, introduced a resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council establishing a permanent commission to investigate Israel and the Palestinian territories. It passed 24–9, with 14 abstentions. China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Venezuela supported it. Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom opposed it. Neither Israel nor the United States voted, as neither was a council member.
Graffiti on Florida’s Holocaust Memorial in May 2021
The commission received a sweeping mandate to investigate alleged violations of international law and the historical causes of the conflict. Its mandate had no expiration date – a highly unusual move.
Three commissioners were appointed in July 2021: Navi Pillay of South Africa, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as chair; Miloon Kothari of India, a former UN Special Rapporteur on housing; and Chris Sidoti, a former Australian Human Rights Commissioner.
A year later, Kothari publicly repeated antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish power while questioning Israel’s place in the United Nations.
The Jewish Lobby Controls What People Read
In July 2022, Kothari spoke with Mondoweiss, a publication strongly critical of Israel. Complaining about opposition to his commission, he declared: “We are very disheartened by the social media that is controlled largely by – whether it is the Jewish lobby or specific NGOs.”
He also alleged that substantial money was being spent to discredit the investigators.
For centuries, antisemites have claimed that Jews secretly control newspapers, publishing, entertainment and public opinion. Kothari updated that conspiracy for social media, coupling supposed Jewish control of information with financial power.
These were central themes of the fabricated Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which portrayed Jews as manipulating society through the press, finance and politics. Nazi propaganda later exploited these accusations to depict Jews as dangerous enemies of society.
These remarks came from one of three UN officials entrusted with investigating the Jewish state.
Miloon Kothari
Jewish Influence and International Accountability
Kothari also accused Israel of undermining the United Nations: “They, in fact, consistently, either directly or through the United States, try to undermine UN mechanisms.”
His allegations followed a familiar antisemitic narrative: Jewish influence over information, money and powerful governments supposedly shielding Israel from accountability.
Kothari also suggested that accusations of antisemitism were used against critics of Israel. Under this reasoning, objections to antisemitic statements become further evidence of the supposed conspiracy.
When an investigator sees criticism as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy, he has already found a reason to dismiss those who challenge his conclusions.
From Criticizing Israel to Questioning Its Legitimacy
Kothari went further: “I would go as far as to raise the question of why [Israel is] even a member of the United Nations.” He argued that Israel failed to respect its international obligations.
His historical interpretation was equally expansive: “What has transpired in the occupied territories since ’67 is something that had already been happening inside the Green Line since ’48”
Kothari explained that the commission was examining human rights “from the river to the sea” and added: “There are similarities inside and outside Green Line, so linkages must be made.”
He also argued that apartheid alone was insufficient to explain the conflict and that the commission needed to examine “settler-colonialism.” His framework placed Israel’s founding, rather than particular government decisions, at the center of the commission’s indictment.
From Personal Prejudice to UN Findings
Not surprisingly, the commission’s first report, issued in June 2022 under Kothari, emphasized systematic discrimination, territorial control and historical causes of the conflict. Kothari explained the commission’s ambitions: “Our work is to collect a repository of all the evidence that we gather.”
He said the material could eventually be handed to judicial bodies. Commission members had already met with officials at the International Criminal Court, including a deputy prosecutor, and contemplated approaching governments about arms transfers and companies operating in Israeli settlements.
The investigation was designed to influence international legal proceedings, diplomatic pressure and commercial relationships.
The commission’s October 14, 2026 report demonstrated how its historical framework endured. Paragraph 58 begins: “Since the 1947-48 war, Israel has continuously striven to expand territorially and displace Palestinians through violence.” The report attributes Israeli actions across generations to territorial expansion, demographic control and discrimination.
Four years earlier, Kothari had connected events in 1948 and 1967 through the same historical interpretation. The new report, issued under different commissioners, carried that framework forward, expressly directing readers to consider its earlier investigations.
An interpretation advanced by a commissioner who publicly invoked antisemitic conspiracy theories had become part of the commission’s continuing institutional narrative.
The Apology and the Institution That Remained
Kothari’s remarks in Mondoweiss drew condemnation from American officials, including Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, and Ambassador Michèle Taylor. European governments, Canadian officials and Jewish organizations also criticized him. Human Rights Council President Federico Villegas warned that Kothari’s comments could stigmatize Jewish people.
Commission chair Navi Pillay defended Kothari, arguing that his remarks had been misrepresented. Yet Kothari himself apologized in August 2022, acknowledging that describing social media as largely controlled by a Jewish lobby was wrong. He also clarified that he did not question Israel’s existence or advocate its expulsion from the UN.
On October 26, 2026, it publicized its October 14 report accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, crimes against humanity in the West Bank and deliberately targeting Palestinian children. Its historical account portrayed Israeli policy since 1948 as a continuing project of territorial expansion and Palestinian displacement.
Once incorporated into successive UN reports, contested historical interpretations acquire the appearance of independently verified facts, available for citation by governments, universities and political movements. The commission also recommended action by other countries and international institutions concerning Israel’s policies.
Kothari’s antisemitic conspiracy theories prompted an apology but little institutional reckoning. The investigations he helped shape became the foundation for successive UN reports, accumulating authority long after his departure and influencing global opinion, diplomatic campaigns and potentially international legal proceedings against Israel.
The UN allowed antisemitic conspiracy theories to take root in its reports, turning them into foundational texts for a new wave of anti-Israel invective cloaked in international authority.
This is Part One of a series examining the surge in antisemitism, starting with an analytical perspective, and following it to find its basis and track its progression.
Ten countries, six years of data, and a striking change in the global pattern
Antisemitism is often discussed through individual incidents: an attack on a synagogue, harassment of Jewish students, vandalism of a Jewish business, or threats directed at Jewish families. Each event tells us something about the experiences of Jews in a particular place. Looking at thousands of incidents across several countries and multiple years can tell us something different.
It can reveal patterns.
Memorial site for Jews gunned down during a Chanukah celebration in Sydney, Australia
I examined reported antisemitic incidents in ten countries over six years, from 2019 through 2024. The objective was to understand how antisemitism changed over time, whether countries followed similar trajectories, and what happened around October 7, 2023, when the political-terrorist group Hamas attacked Israel and the subsequent war began.
I began with the numbers themselves, before considering possible explanations.
The Ten Countries
The ten countries chosen were the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Argentina. Each has an established Jewish community of more than 25,000 people and an organization or government agency that regularly publishes statistics on antisemitic incidents. Together, they provide a geographically diverse sample spanning North America, South America, Europe and Australia.
The countries also offer useful differences. Their Jewish populations range from tens of thousands to millions. They have different political systems, histories, cultures and approaches to recording antisemitism.
Before October 7, the ten countries were moving in different directions. Some had experienced years of increasing antisemitism, while others had seen substantial declines. By 2024, every one of them was reporting more antisemitic incidents than in 2022.
What could explain such a consistent change across countries with such different histories?
I used statistics from the Anti-Defamation League in the United States, Community Security Trust in Britain, the French Interior Ministry, German police, B’nai Brith Canada, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Italy’s CDEC, the Netherlands’ CIDI and Argentina’s DAIA.
What Happened Between 2019 and 2024?
The first question was straightforward: how many antisemitic incidents were recorded each year?
Country
2019
2022
2024
Change 2022–2024
United States
2,107
3,697
9,354
+153%
United Kingdom
1,805
1,662
3,528
+112%
France
687
436
1,570
+260%
Germany
2,032
2,641
6,236
+136%
Canada
2,207
2,769
6,219
+125%
Australia*
368
478
2,062
+331%
Italy
251
241
877
+264%
Netherlands
182
155
421
+172%
Argentina
918
427
687
+61%
Belgium
92
34
129
+279%
Australia uses reporting years ending in September. Its 2024 period covers October 2023 through September 2024. Figures reflect national reporting systems with different definitions and coverage.
Taken together, there were roughly 12,500 antisemitic incidents in 2022 and 31,000 in 2024, an increase of approximately 148%. Although reporting definitions vary between countries, the combined total offers another perspective on the scale of the increase.
Every country recorded more incidents in 2024 than in 2022.
The increases ranged from 61% in Argentina to more than 300% in Australia. The median increase was approximately 153%, meaning the middle country experienced roughly two and a half times as many recorded incidents in 2024 as in 2022.
Yet the countries had arrived at 2022 by very different paths.
Some Countries Had Been Rising. Others Had Been Declining.
Between 2019 and 2022, antisemitic incidents increased in four countries: the United States, Germany, Canada and Australia. The United States experienced particularly substantial growth, with incidents rising 75%.
The other six countries were moving in the opposite direction. France recorded 687 incidents in 2019 and 436 in 2022, a decline of 37%. Argentina fell from 918 to 427, a decline of 53%. Britain, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands also recorded lower totals in 2022 than in 2019.
Despite their trajectories, all ten countries had experienced substantial increases from their 2022 levels.
We tested whether countries with the fastest increases before 2023 also experienced the fastest increases afterward. The statistical relationship was extremely weak, with a correlation of just +0.13.
In practical terms, knowing whether a country’s antisemitism had previously been rising or falling told us remarkably little about the size of its subsequent increase.
How Unusual Was the Increase?
I next compared the 2024 figures with the historical patterns established between 2019 and 2022. I tested three approaches: comparing 2024 with the earlier four-year average, extending the earlier trend forward in a straight line, and projecting the earlier compound annual growth rate.
Every country recorded 2024 totals ABOVE all three benchmarks.
The size of the difference varied depending on the method, particularly in countries where earlier incidents had been declining. Extending a short downward trend can produce unrealistically low projections, so no single forecast should be treated as a definitive estimate of what would otherwise have happened.
But the important finding is that the conclusion remained consistent when we changed the mathematical assumptions: 2024 was substantially above the levels suggested by earlier reporting patterns.
When Did the Pattern Change?
Annual totals show the scale of a change. Monthly figures help establish its timing.
In France, 39 antisemitic incidents were recorded in October 2022. In October 2023, the number was 563, more than fourteen times as many. October 2024 recorded 157 incidents, substantially below the extraordinary October 2023 peak but still approximately four times the October 2022 level.
Britain offers another useful comparison. Community Security Trust reported an average of approximately 154 incidents per month during the year preceding October 7, 2023. The average during 2024 was approximately 294 per month, an increase of 91%.
Australia recorded 495 incidents in the reporting year ending September 2023 and 2,062 in the following reporting year, which began six days before the Hamas attack. That represents more than a fourfold increase.
These observations show two related developments: a dramatic initial increase around October 2023 and continued elevated reporting levels during 2024.
The timing is particularly interesting because the countries were experiencing the same international event despite having different domestic histories and earlier antisemitism trends.
Was the Increase Temporary?
A sudden event can produce a brief surge in incidents that quickly subsides. It can also be followed by a more lasting change.
The 2023 and 2024 numbers allow us to begin distinguishing those possibilities.
Britain, France and Belgium recorded fewer incidents in 2024 than in 2023, indicating that their initial peaks had moderated. Yet all remained substantially above their 2022 levels.
The United States, Germany, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Argentina recorded higher totals in 2024 than in 2023. Australia’s reporting calendar places nearly the entire first post-October 7 year in its 2024 total.
Thus, the immediate surge was followed by different national trajectories, but elevated incident levels persisted across the sample through 2024.
What Have We Learned?
The ten countries began with different histories, different Jewish populations and different trajectories. Yet all experienced substantial increases in recorded antisemitism during the same period. The available monthly records place the sharpest change around October 2023, with elevated levels continuing through 2024.
The statistical pattern is plainly visible. Antisemitic attacks have always existed but spiked around the world after October 7, 2023. People around the world came for their local Jews who had nothing to do with an event thousands of miles away. This is a unique global phenomena, as people do not attack other diaspora communities for wars involving their homelands anywhere else.
