I want to thank The New York Times for publishing today’s guest essay, “The Spanish Shylock Problem,” about the antisemitism embedded in everyday language. It is a welcome subject for a newspaper that has done so much to negatively shape the language used to describe Jews and Israel.
The author focuses on the Royal Spanish Academy, whose official dictionary includes a definition of judío, the Spanish word for Jew, as a miserly or usurious person. In 2024, an Argentine judge ordered the Academy to remove the definition following a campaign by Jewish organizations. The Academy refused, explaining that dictionaries record how people actually use words.
Which came first, the antisemitic stereotype or the dictionary definition? Did the Academy simply record centuries of prejudice, or has its dictionary helped perpetuate that prejudice by presenting Jewish stinginess as an accepted meaning of the word Jew?
The essay could have challenged the stereotype with some actual evidence. A national American survey found that 76% of Jewish households donated to charity, compared with 63% of non-Jewish households. Median annual donations were $1,200 for Jews, twice those of non-Jews. Among Jewish donors, 92% contributed to non-Jewish organizations. Hardly the portrait of a miserly people.
The essay also discusses Spanish expressions associating Jews with secrecy. Here, a little history would have been useful beyond generic persecution to the specific religious nature of the attacks on Jews.
The Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to convert, flee or risk death. The Inquisition existed in Mexico and Latin America for hundreds of years until the 1820s. Many converts continued practicing Judaism secretly, risking imprisonment, torture or execution. Their descendants spread throughout Latin America, where a 2018 genetic study published in Nature Communications found evidence of widespread ancestry – 23 percent! – associated with converso migration.
The persecutors forced Jews into secrecy. Their descendants inherited a language that characterized Jews as secretive.
Society has shown that it can change its vocabulary. Polite society has largely abandoned the N-word, recognizing it as an ugly racial slur. Muslim organizations have campaigned to separate Islam from terrorism, arguing that the association unfairly casts suspicion on nearly two billion Muslims rather than the radical jihadists responsible for terrorist attacks.
Yet centuries-old stereotypes about Jews remain embedded in dictionaries, journalism and everyday speech. The willingness to reconsider offensive language seems to stop when Jews are the subject.
William Safire spent decades examining the origins and meanings of words in his celebrated New York Times column, “On Language.” He understood how much a single word could convey.
In July 2014, as antisemitic attacks swept across Europe during the Gaza war, three Times articles described the protests as having an antisemitic “tinge.” A slight whiff of Jew-hatred. Dan Bilefsky used the expression on July 21, Helene Cooper and Somini Sengupta on July 24, and Jodi Rudoren on July 27.
And what was going on? On July 20, anti-Israel rioters attacked a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, while Jewish businesses were looted. A week earlier, demonstrators in Paris had threatened synagogues, chanting “Death to the Jews” and “Hitler was right.” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned the violence, explicitly identifying the attacks on Jewish institutions as antisemitism and racism.
The newspaper seemed determined to preserve the distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, even when protesters themselves had erased it. Calling the hatred a “tinge” allowed the events to remain principally political demonstrations, with antisemitism appearing as an unfortunate side effect.
“Pro-Palestinian demonstrations are continuing in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Amsterdam and other European cities, some of them assuming an anti-Semitic tinge.” – New York Times article on July 24, 2014, “As Much of the World Frowns on Israel, Americans Hold Out Support”
The Spanish Academy says it merely records how people speak. The Times cannot hide behind that explanation. Its journalists and editors decide how events are described, which words are emphasized and what readers are encouraged to believe.
I appreciate today’s guest essay. It is refreshing to see the Times devote space to the antisemitism that survives in ordinary language, especially as The Times has spent years choosing the words through which readers understand Jews and Israel.
It might begin its examination of antisemitic language with the words it chooses itself.
The American Dream promises that anyone can achieve anything. Build a business, accumulate wealth, enter politics and shape culture. Pursue your ambitions without an artificial ceiling imposed by your ancestry or religion.
Unless, according to antisemitic conspiracy theories, you are Jewish.
For centuries, Jews have been accused of controlling banks, manipulating politicians, owning the media and starting wars. The accusations change with the times, but the underlying claim remains: Jews possess too much power, and that power is dangerous.
Nazi Germany defined Jews by ancestry. Fighting for Germany, converting to Christianity, marrying a non-Jew or even supporting Hitler could not erase Jewish ancestry. As explored in What Does a Jew Have to Do to Be Accepted?, there was no reliable way to become acceptable under Nazi racial ideology.
The contemporary jihadi-socialist alliance presents a different challenge. Some of its rhetoric portrays Zionists and Jewish institutions as part of a privileged elite, accused of colonialism, oppression and Jewish supremacy. The objection is framed not simply around Jewish ancestry, but around Jewish power.
Left-wing media The Nation, described the grassroots organizing to oust unpopular incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman as a fight waged by Jewish billionaires against a poor Black man
That suggests a different solution. If Jews have too much power, perhaps they can become acceptable by surrendering some of it.
But how much?
A Jewish businessman can succeed, but at some undefined level of wealth, as success becomes evidence of financial domination. A Jewish politician can gain influence, but too much influence becomes proof of a conspiracy. Jewish writers, journalists and entertainers can flourish, until their achievements are portrayed as Jewish control over American culture.
How much Jewish wealth is acceptable? How many Jewish members of Congress? How many newspapers, universities or businesses may Jews lead before their achievements become threatening?
There is no published limit. No established threshold.
The conspiracy theory supplies its own answer: Jewish success is evidence of Jewish power, and Jewish power is something to fear.
This is a peculiar kind of glass ceiling. Jews are not necessarily prevented from achieving success. They are condemned for achieving too much of it. The ceiling becomes visible only after they have supposedly crossed it.
Perhaps Jews should stop contributing to political campaigns, lobbying Congress or advocating for their interests. Perhaps they should withdraw from finance, become less prominent in entertainment and apologize for their prosperity.
Would that make them acceptable?
What about their synagogues? Jewish institutions increasingly rely on security guards, police protection and barriers against attacks. Should Jews abandon those protections to demonstrate that they enjoy no special privileges? Must Jewish worshippers accept intimidation outside their synagogues to prove they deserve no more protection than anyone else?
And what about Israel?
Americans routinely celebrate their ancestral homelands which is a core part of Judaism. Yet Jewish support for Israel is sometimes portrayed as evidence of divided loyalty or Jewish supremacy. Must American Jews abandon their homeland and support for the Jewish state or distance themselves from Jewish organizations to demonstrate that they are acceptable Americans?
Is there an emerging demand that Jews can participate in American society, provided they never become too wealthy, too influential, too visible or too supportive of Israel? An invisible glass ceiling over Jewish achievement, with the height determined by those who resent it.
That is not the American Dream.
In 1790, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”
George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport
Washington rejected the idea that Jews lived in America by the generosity of a Christian majority. Their rights were inherent. They could worship, prosper, participate in government and pursue their ambitions without asking permission. There was no provision that Jews must remain sufficiently poor, powerless or inconspicuous to avoid offending others.
The demand that Jews surrender their supposed power would turn Washington’s promise upside down. Political participation becomes a privilege. Economic success becomes an offense. Supporting Israel becomes a test of American loyalty. The American Dream becomes something Jews may pursue only until their success makes someone uncomfortable.
That is unacceptable.
The American Dream has no Jewish ceiling. Those who would impose one are challenging something far greater than Jewish success.
Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938 – November 9, 2026
Imagine being a Jew living in Germany in 1910, with the extraordinary ability to see the future. You know that Adolf Hitler will come to power in 1933, that antisemitic laws will follow, and that on November 9, 1938, synagogues will burn across Germany and Austria.
You love Germany. Your family has lived there for generations. You want to remain in your homeland, raise your children and grow old among your neighbors. What should you do over the next 28 years to ensure that you and your family will be accepted?
Perhaps you should enter government service immediately.
Excellent idea. On April 7, 1933, the Nazis enacted the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, removing Jews from government employment. But Jews who had entered service before August 1, 1914, were exempted.
Perhaps you should fight for Germany in World War I.
Another excellent decision. Jewish veterans who had fought at the front were also exempted from the 1933 civil service purge. Even Jews whose fathers or sons had died fighting for Germany received protection under that law. Some 12,000 German Jews died fighting for their country during World War I. Surely that counted for something.
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882), Die Jahrzeit (Minjan), 1871
Perhaps you should marry a Christian German woman, convert to Christianity and raise your children as Christians.
That might offer additional protection. Conversion would not change your racial classification under Nazi law, but an existing marriage to a non-Jewish German could affect how the authorities treated your family.
Monument in Berlin, Germany for the German women who fought to save their Jewish husbands from death in the Nazi concentration camps. (photo: FirstOneThrough)
Or perhaps you should go even further. What if you supported Hitler himself?
You could embrace German nationalism, reject Jewish communal organizations, vote for the Nazi Party and seek to join its ranks. You could agree with its economic program, its hostility to communism and its promise to restore German greatness.
Would becoming a Nazi make you an acceptable Jew?
No. The Nazi Party generally excluded Jews from membership, and its racial laws did not reward Jewish ancestry with exemption because someone supported Hitler. Political loyalty could not transform a Jew into an Aryan. You might have agreed with every Nazi policy except its treatment of Jews. That disagreement would not have saved you.
And the other strategies were unraveling.
In 1935, the Nazis eliminated the civil service protections for Jewish veterans and longtime government employees. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of full citizenship rights and prohibited marriages between Jews and people classified as German or related blood.
By 1938, German Jews faced escalating economic exclusion, confiscation of property, arrests and expulsions.
Consider Victor Klemperer, a German professor, World War I veteran, Protestant convert and husband of a non-Jewish German woman. He had embraced German culture and served his country. The Nazis nevertheless classified him as Jewish and dismissed him from his professorship in 1935.
On November 9, 1938, Nazi-organized mobs burned synagogues, destroyed Jewish businesses, attacked Jewish homes and arrested tens of thousands of Jewish men. The German Jew who had spent decades demonstrating his patriotism could watch his synagogue burn alongside the synagogue of the Jew who had never sought to assimilate.
Interior of synagogue torched during Kristallnacht
Eighty-eight years later, Jews across the diaspora face a renewed surge in antisemitism and questions about what makes them acceptable. In 2021, CAIR leader Zahra Billoo warned Muslims against the “polite Zionists,” including Jewish Federations, Hillel and synagogues. Even Jews who had stood alongside Muslims against discrimination were not necessarily friends. “Know your enemies,” she said.
So what should a Jew do today? Become an anti-Zionist? Denounce Israel? Turn against Jewish organizations? Would that finally be enough?
The German Jew of 1910 could spend the next 28 years changing everything about himself and still discover that he had changed nothing in the eyes of those who hated him.
There is no winning a contest in which someone else keeps changing the rules.
Jews should decide what they believe, whom they support and how they live their lives. The moment they begin making those decisions to satisfy people who demand that they become a different kind of Jew, they have already surrendered something far more important than approval.
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.
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:
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.
This is Part Two of a series examining the surge in antisemitism: Following the Evidence Across Ten Countries
In June 2024, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped and assaulted by three boys, aged 12 and 13, in Courbevoie, a suburb of Paris. The attackers subjected her to antisemitic insults and threats. Two were subsequently sentenced to seven and nine years in prison, while the third was found guilty of complicity and placed under educational supervision.
The presiding judge concluded that the girl would never have been subjected to the attack had she not been Jewish.
The attack raises a disturbing question. How did children barely into adolescence acquire such intense hatred of Jews, and what made them willing to act upon it?
It is a question that reaches far beyond France.
Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, reported antisemitic incidents surged across the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Argentina. Between 2022 and 2024, increases ranged from 61% in Argentina to more than 300% in Australia.
Ten countries across four continents, with different populations, economies, governments and relationships with Israel, experienced the same extraordinary escalation: Anti-Israel feelings manifest in antisemitic attacks globally.
I next sought to look at the available evidence to understand why. What characteristics correlate with antisemitism? Which beliefs make people more likely to hate Jews? And what explains the sudden transformation of that hatred into harassment, threats and physical violence?
Some of the strongest findings involve conspiracy theories, attitudes toward Israel and younger generations. Other explanations that seem intuitively obvious – and First One Through has discussed frequently – show surprisingly little relationship with the surge.
The Conspiracy Connection
Antisemitism has always found fertile ground in conspiracy theories.
For centuries, Jews have been accused of secretly controlling governments, financial markets, newspapers and wars. The accusations have changed with technology and politics, but their essential message remains the same: powerful Jews are supposedly manipulating events behind the scenes.
“They were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources. They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading in armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without having their finger in it.” – 1988 Hamas Foundational Charter, Article 22
In 2024, the Anti-Defamation League and YouGov surveyed 7,000 adults across seven countries: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and Argentina. They found that people who believed in secret plots controlling world events generally, were significantly more likely to accept antisemitic stereotypes.
The relationship was among the strongest measured in the survey.
Britain’s Community Security Trust found the same narratives appearing in actual incidents. In 2024, it recorded 487 antisemitic incidents involving conspiracy theories, including 345 concerning supposed Jewish control over politics, media, finance and other institutions.
Conspiracy theories offer a simple explanation for complicated events. Economic difficulties, political defeats, global pandemics and international conflicts can all be blamed on a hidden enemy.
When Jews are assigned extraordinary collective power, blaming them for events in which they have no involvement becomes easier.
That is especially dangerous when the event in question is a war involving Israel.
When Hostility Toward Israel Becomes Hatred of Jews
The strongest evidence of what changed after October 7 comes from Britain.
In 2022, the Community Security Trust recorded 246 antisemitic incidents involving Israel-related rhetoric. By 2024, that number had reached 1,844. Israel-related incidents accounted for approximately 86% of Britain’s entire increase in reported antisemitism over those two years. Other antisemitic incidents increased much more modestly.
Germany experienced a similar ideological shift. Among the antisemitic crimes police specifically connected to October 7 and the subsequent Middle East conflict, more than 85% were classified under foreign or religious ideological motivation. Right-wing extremism remained a major source of German antisemitism overall but the offenses connected to the war had a different ideological profile.
France documented hundreds of incidents involving explicit references to Palestine. In the United States, the ADL found that 58% of recorded antisemitic incidents in 2024 contained elements related to Israel or Zionism. Italy and Argentina also documented the intersection of anti-Israel rhetoric with established antisemitic accusations.
The pattern crossed borders, languages and political systems.
A synagogue in Paris, a Jewish student in New York or a Jewish business in London could become a target for anger over events in Israel.
Herzl-Ner Tamid, a synagogue on Mercer Island, Washington that was vandalized in November 2023
The connection to conspiracy thinking is significant. When people already believe Jews possess collective political power, they can more readily assign collective responsibility for Israel’s actions to Jews everywhere.
A Troubling Generational Divide
The age of the Courbevoie attackers raises another important question: What are younger people learning about Jews?
The seven-country ADL survey found that 23% of Generation Z respondents and 24% of millennials believed Jews were responsible for most of the world’s wars. By comparison, Baby Boomers and older respondents, the figure was 10%.
Younger respondents were also substantially more likely to express favorable opinions of Hamas.
German researchers studying young people before and after October 7 found increasing traditional antisemitic prejudice, with conspiracy thinking and religious fundamentalism among the associated factors. A separate study of American and German respondents likewise found younger age to be an important predictor of certain antisemitic attitudes.
In Britain, minors were involved in approximately 30% of antisemitic physical assaults where the offender’s age was known, compared with 15% of other antisemitic incidents.
Canada’s police records also show an increase in the proportion of young people accused of religion-motivated hate crimes, from 23% to 35% when comparing 2019–2021 with 2022–2024. Those figures cover crimes against several religious communities, rather than Jews alone.
Social Media Gives Old Hatreds New Reach
A century ago, conspiracy theories spread through newspapers, pamphlets and political speeches. Today, accusations about Jewish control, Israeli conspiracies and collective Jewish responsibility can circulate globally within minutes.
Research in the United States and Germany has found associations between intensive social-media consumption, conspiracy thinking and antisemitic attitudes.
Britain’s incident records provide another revealing comparison. In 2024, 71% of online antisemitic incidents involved Middle East-related rhetoric, compared with 42% of offline incidents.
Political and ideological accusations were particularly prevalent online.
In Britain, X accounted for substantially more recorded antisemitic incidents than Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. Argentina’s monitoring likewise found more reported antisemitic activity on X and Facebook.
These records identify where incidents were reported, rather than measuring how strongly each platform influences its users. Still, they reveal how familiar antisemitic accusations have found new audiences and new means of circulation.
A young person encountering repeated claims that Jews control world events, manipulate governments or bear responsibility for a distant war may come to regard those accusations as ordinary political explanations. The messages become familiar and their acceptance can make collective blame seem reasonable.
From Prejudice to Physical Violence
The escalation after October 7 went far beyond hostile words.
In the United States, antisemitic physical assaults increased from 111 in 2022 to 196 in 2024. Britain recorded 137 physical attacks in 2022 and 202 in 2024. Australia’s reported physical assaults increased from 11 to 65 between its 2023 and 2024 reporting years, nearly a sixfold increase. Argentina recorded ten physical assaults in 2024, compared with one in 2022. France recorded 106 physical assaults during 2024.
These attacks included people being punched, kicked, spat upon and otherwise assaulted because they were Jewish.
The increases occurred in countries with very different demographic and political characteristics.
They also varied in severity. In Australia, physical assaults increased faster than overall antisemitic incidents. In Britain, the total number of incidents increased faster than physical assaults.
The international escalation had different local expressions, even as Jewish communities across multiple countries faced greater physical danger.
The challenge is understanding what separates people who hold antisemitic beliefs from those willing to act violently upon them.
The Explanations That Failed the Test
We also examined several factors that might seem obvious explanations for the international surge. The results were surprising.
Immigration did little to explain the differences. Countries with higher levels of overall immigration did not consistently experience larger increases in antisemitic incidents.
Muslim population share was also a poor national predictor. Countries with larger Muslim populations did not systematically experience greater increases in reported antisemitism.
This is a different question from identifying the ideologies or backgrounds of individual offenders. Germany’s police records demonstrate the importance of ideological motivation, while the national population comparison shows that demographic proportions alone explain little about the size of the surge.
Economic hardship produced mixed results. Unemployment showed no consistent relationship with the increase in antisemitic incidents. Some relatively prosperous countries experienced enormous increases, while others facing greater economic challenges recorded smaller ones.
Government positions toward Israel were equally unhelpful. We compared countries’ voting alignment with the United States on Israel-related resolutions at the United Nations. The relationship with antisemitic incident growth was virtually zero. A government’s diplomatic position offered little indication of how much antisemitism would increase among its population.
Countries with more widespread antisemitic beliefs did not necessarily experience larger increases in antisemitic incidents. The ADL’s international surveys measure agreement with familiar antisemitic stereotypes, including accusations of excessive Jewish power and influence. Across seven countries, the average number of stereotypes endorsed had almost no relationship with the percentage increase in reported antisemitism.
Argentina had relatively high levels of measured antisemitic prejudice but the smallest proportional increase in incidents among our nine countries. France had lower measured prejudice yet experienced a much larger escalation.
These comparisons concern the growth of recorded incidents, rather than the absolute risk of an attack. They also draw on different national reporting systems. Nevertheless, the absence of a consistent positive relationship is revealing.
The amount of prejudice already present in a society appears to be only part of the story. Something else determines when those beliefs become more openly expressed, politically mobilized or translated into attacks.
What the Ten Countries Reveal
The evidence points toward a distinction between the existence of antisemitic prejudice and the circumstances that bring it into the open.
Conspiracy thinking is strongly associated with antisemitic attitudes. October 7 and the subsequent war provided an international event around which hostility toward Israel and Jews became increasingly intertwined. Social media circulated the accusations widely, especially under younger people.
In multiple countries, the escalation extended into physical violence.
The most striking finding is that broad national characteristics – immigration levels, Muslim population shares, economic conditions, government voting patterns and even the prevalence of antisemitic stereotypes—did little to predict which countries would experience the largest increases.
The war provided a common international catalyst. The response reflected the beliefs people held, the narratives they encountered and the willingness of some to blame Jews collectively for events in Israel.
Two people killed in a synagogue on Yom Kippur in Manchester, UK by a plan pledging allegiance to ISIS
Return to the 12-year-old girl in Courbevoie.
Her attackers were children. She was a child. The court determined that her Jewish identity was the reason she was targeted. The tragedy reveals what is at stake when anti-Jewish prejudice becomes a justification for violence.
The most urgent challenge is to confront the ideas and conspiracy theories that turn Jews into collective enemies—before another child, student, worshipper or passerby becomes their target.
