Antisemitism and Conspiracy Theories

You can't fight the former with the latter, because antisemitism is the greatest conspiracy theory of all time

Nazi propaganda poster, “The Jewish Conspiracy,” from the collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Antisemitism comes in many forms. There is the theological antisemitism of medieval Christianity, according to which the Jewish people bear the mark of Cain for their rejection of the Messiah (which has been substantially repudiated by the Catholic Church in modern times). There is the social antisemitism that was common in America and Europe prior to the 1960s, which ranked Jews below proper White people in a status hierarchy and sought to exclude them from any social entity deemed exclusive. There is the racial antisemitism of the Nazis (and before it of early modern Spain), which anathematized Jews as corrupters of otherwise “pure” blood. And there’s simple ethnic bigotry and invidious stereotyping of the sort that nearly every ethnic group has suffered from at some point or other.

But the most important way in which antisemitism differs from other kinds of racial, religious or ethnic animus is its frequent association with conspiracy theories. Indeed, I concur with Yair Rosenberg that political antisemitism is, in itself, essentially a conspiracy theory, which is to say, a theory that explains how the world works by reference to the machinations of a secret group pulling the strings behind the scenes. Why, precisely, the Jews long ago became such a frequent object of such theories is something very worth historical investigation, but at this point it’s a historical fact that conspiracy theories about Jews have a long history and broad reach. And one of the dangers of conspiratorial thinking in general is that it will inevitably tend to become antisemitic simply because of the gravitational pull of the grand champion conspiracy theory of all time. Therefore, one critical aspect of combating antisemitism is to combat conspiratorial modes of thinking generally.

I endorse the logic of the foregoing paragraph completely. Which is why I am troubled by what I see as an increasingly conspiratorial turn in the thinking and rhetoric of some Jewish people and institutions, particularly since the massacres of October 7th, 2023.

For example: has it ever occurred to you that Students for Justice in Palestine seemed remarkably quick to protest against Israel after October 7th, long before Israel had even begun to retaliate? Like, almost as if they’d known in advance about the attacks? And doesn’t it seem sinister that the tiny nation of Qatar has spent so much money on American academia? Like they are trying to corruptly control the ideology of those institutions, and through them our youth? And doesn’t it seem suspicious that so many international organizations parrot the same anti-Israel talking points about genocide in Gaza? Like they are all getting their marching orders from the same place? The whole global media ecosystem sometimes feels like it is organized around slandering Jews and the Jewish State, doesn’t it? When it comes right down to it, if you aren’t getting your information from a Jewish source—and the right kind of Jewish source at that—you have no idea whose propaganda you might be ingesting.

I haven’t done any kind of a study, so all I have to go on is the anecdotal evidence from my personal experience. But in my personal experience, I’m seeing more and more talk of the foregoing sort, including from people I know. I hear more and more people seeking the “real” reason why anti-Israel sentiment has exploded, and why political antisemitism is once again going mainstream, wondering who is behind it all.

That worries me quite a bit. It worries me first of all because indulgence in conspiracy theorizing cripples your own decision making. It’s the ultimate in motivated reasoning, working from a necessary conclusion back to whatever premise will support it, and is almost always unfalsifiable from the inside. How can you ever see what’s actually going on if you proceed that way? Moreover, a conspiratorial mindset makes it harder to understand anyone’s actual motives, and therefore impossible to affect their behavior other than through force. In general, you’re going to get along much better in understanding the world if you think of everyone acting in it has discernible interests—which may well conflict with your own—rather than being controlled by a secret cabal with malign motives.

I also worry about it because conspiratorial thinking appeals most of all to those who feel powerless, so indulgence in that kind of thinking is a sign that someone is feeling that way. But, objectively, Israel has a great deal of power, and Jewish institutions have a great deal of power. That doesn’t mean Jews aren’t also vulnerable—the Jewish people have a long history of simultaneously holding a meaningful amount of power and experiencing a great deal of vulnerability. But this kind of indulgence in conspiratorial thinking feels to me like evidence that many Jews are unable to assess their own position objectively, and mistake vulnerability, which is real, for powerlessness, which is not. This naturally leads to demands for reassuring demonstrations of power, whether or not they are prudentially wise. And one easy way to destroy your position is to behave in counterproductive ways premised on fallacious beliefs about what your position actually is.

But it also worries me because Rosenberg is right about the relationship between conspiracy theorizing and antisemitism, so for Jewish groups to participate in that kind of rhetoric effectively disarms them in the fight to combat conspiratorial thinking generally. You can’t simultaneously say that there’s a secret, shadowy Islamic network pulling the strings behind the scenes and also argue that it’s an antisemitic canard to say that a secret, shadowy Jewish network is pulling the strings behind the scenes. If the former is plausible, then the latter will seem plausible—so if Jews go around promoting the former, they will inevitably open doors to the latter. Indeed, holding the position that only one conspiracy theory is obviously bigoted, while all others are fair game, seems like precisely the kind of thing that would lead people to wonder whether the prohibited theory isn’t the one they should really be looking into.

Mind you, occasionally conspiracy theories are true, and it’s more broadly true that people and institutions don’t always act in an above-board manner. Far from it. Moreover, there are responses to conspiracy-laced suspicions that are totally reasonable. There’s nothing wrong with asking for more transparency about who is funding what, for example, just as there’s nothing wrong with practicing a politics aimed at redistributing power more broadly. Release the Epstein files; why not? But what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander. To behave otherwise is once again to invite conspiratorial thinking. And fighting conspiratorial thinking as such has to be central to combating antisemitism.

If, of course, that’s what we’re interested in fighting. For some people—for some Jews, even—the return of antisemitism may feel like a confirmation of an eternal truth, and may feel paradoxically comforting for that very reason. It’s the same comfort that the conspiracy theorist receives, the belief that he truly understands the world, earned at the price of accepting his practical inability to change it. I want nothing to do with that kind of comfort, though. And I hope not too many of my fellows do either.