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By: Fern Sidman
More than two millennia before the word “antisemitism” was ever coined, the hatred it describes had already embedded itself in human civilization. As i24News has repeatedly emphasized in its historical and analytical reporting, the phenomenon commonly perceived as a modern political pathology is, in truth, one of humanity’s oldest and most adaptive hatreds — a protean force that has continuously reinvented itself to survive every cultural, religious, and technological transformation. What began as ancient myth and superstition has now evolved into a globalized digital ideology, weaponized through social media, geopolitical propaganda, and algorithmic amplification.
According to historical research cited and contextualized by i24News, the origins of organized anti-Jewish hatred do not lie in Nazi Germany, nor in modern political Islam, nor even in medieval Europe. They trace back to the third century BCE in Hellenistic Alexandria. It was there that the Egyptian historian Manetho produced what scholars now recognize as one of the earliest recorded examples of mass disinformation — an ancient prototype of “fake news.” Manetho falsely claimed that Jews were descendants of diseased lepers expelled from Egypt, a narrative designed to delegitimize Jewish identity and portray Jews as biologically corrupt, socially dangerous, and morally alien.
This foundational libel introduced two archetypes that would echo through history: the Jew as contaminant and the Jew as outsider. As i24News has documented, these stereotypes became deeply embedded in Greco-Roman culture, where Jews were portrayed as a strange and insular people, governed by incomprehensible laws and suspect rituals. In Roman society, this perception translated into sporadic violence, exclusion, and cultural demonization long before Christianity or Islam emerged as dominant civilizational forces.
With the rise of Christianity, antisemitism acquired a powerful new institutional engine. As i24News reports in its historical analyses, theological doctrine transformed social prejudice into religious condemnation. The accusation of collective Jewish guilt for the death of Jesus became the ideological cornerstone of centuries of persecution. Jews were no longer merely foreign — they were demonized as cosmic villains, enemies of salvation itself. This religious framing fueled medieval blood libels, pogroms, forced conversions, expulsions, and massacres across Europe. The Jew became a metaphysical threat, blamed for plagues, famine, and social collapse, cast as both scapegoat and symbol of evil.
Islamic civilization introduced a different but equally hierarchical structure of discrimination. As i24News explained, Jews were classified as dhimmis — “protected people” — granted religious autonomy in exchange for submission, taxation, and legal inferiority. While this system allowed Jewish communities to survive and even flourish in certain periods, it institutionalized a social order of subjugation. Protection came at the cost of humiliation, exclusion, and symbolic degradation. In some regions, Jews were required to wear identifying markers or endure ritualized public humiliation, reinforcing their subordinate status in the social hierarchy.
For centuries, antisemitism remained anchored in theology and religion. But the modern era would transform it into something far more lethal.
As i24News frequently emphasizes, the year 1879 marks a pivotal turning point. German journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term “antisemitism” not as a neutral descriptor, but as a deliberate ideological project. Marr sought to sever hatred of Jews from religious discourse and recast it as a biological and racial threat. The Jew was no longer a heretic who could convert; he was now a genetic contaminant who could not change. This racialization of hatred transformed antisemitism into a pseudo-scientific doctrine — one that portrayed Jews as invaders, parasites, and existential threats to national survival.
This rebranding laid the ideological foundation for modern racial antisemitism and ultimately for Nazism. As i24News has chronicled, the Holocaust was not an aberration of history but the logical culmination of centuries of evolving hatred, fused with modern state power, racial pseudoscience, and bureaucratic efficiency. The Jew had been transformed from religious dissenter to biological enemy, from theological symbol to racial target.
Simultaneously, antisemitism became a political and economic instrument. Rulers and regimes across Europe and beyond weaponized Jewish scapegoating during times of crisis. Economic downturns, political instability, and social unrest were routinely blamed on Jewish communities. The infamous forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — a fabricated text alleging a Jewish conspiracy for global domination — became one of the most influential propaganda documents in modern history. As i24News has reported, its reach extended far beyond Europe, penetrating the Middle East and becoming a foundational text in radical anti-Zionist and Islamist propaganda ecosystems.
In the contemporary era, antisemitism has not disappeared — it has mutated.
i24News frequently describes modern antisemitism as a “chameleon ideology,” emerging simultaneously from three ideological poles: the extreme right, the extreme left, and radical Islam. Each framework uses different language, but the underlying narratives remain strikingly consistent. The Jew is still portrayed as manipulative, dangerous, powerful, and illegitimate — only the vocabulary has changed.
What has truly transformed antisemitism in the 21st century is its migration into digital space. According to i24News analysis, social media platforms have become the primary arena for its spread. Algorithmic systems designed to maximize engagement inadvertently amplify extremism, outrage, and conspiratorial content. The digital ecosystem rewards emotional intensity, not truth, creating fertile ground for modern blood libels.
Hashtags, viral slogans, and online narratives now replicate ancient patterns in modern form. Accusations of “genocide,” conspiracy theories about global Jewish control, and slogans such as #HitlerWasRight are not new ideas — they are ancient libels translated into digital language. i24News reporting has highlighted how these narratives are often coordinated, funded, and strategically amplified by state and non-state actors engaged in information warfare.
Countries such as Iran and Qatar, according to i24News investigative coverage, invest vast resources into what experts term “perception engineering” — sophisticated propaganda campaigns designed to delegitimize Israel and, by extension, Jewish identity itself. In these narratives, the State of Israel is recast as the modern incarnation of ancient evil — the “leper,” the “contaminant,” the “global threat.” The same archetypes invented in Alexandria more than two thousand years ago now circulate through TikTok, X, Instagram, and Telegram.
This evolution has profound implications. As i24News warned, antisemitism today functions not merely as hatred of Jews, but as a destabilizing ideological weapon against democratic societies themselves. History shows a consistent pattern: antisemitism does not remain confined to Jewish communities. It corrodes institutions, radicalizes populations, and erodes social cohesion. It begins with Jews — but it never ends with them.
The digital age has accelerated this process. The speed, scale, and anonymity of online platforms allow hatred to spread faster than any previous historical medium. A single viral post can reach millions in minutes. A single conspiracy theory can radicalize entire communities across continents. As i24News reporting underscores, antisemitism is no longer geographically contained; it is algorithmically globalized.
Yet the core mechanism remains unchanged. Every era invents its own justification. Every civilization dresses hatred in its own moral language. But the structure persists: dehumanization, demonization, scapegoating, and delegitimization.
As i24News has consistently argued, understanding this continuity is essential. Antisemitism is not an isolated prejudice; it is a civilizational pathology. It reflects how societies externalize fear, project failure, and construct enemies. It is a diagnostic tool for social decay.
In the modern world, where technology magnifies narratives and algorithms shape perception, the danger is exponentially greater. The same hatred that once spread through scrolls, sermons, and pamphlets now travels through fiber-optic cables and smartphone screens. It recruits faster, radicalizes younger, and normalizes quicker than ever before.
The story of antisemitism is not merely a Jewish story. It is a human story — a mirror reflecting how civilizations respond to fear, difference, and crisis. And as i24News repeatedly emphasized, confronting it is not simply about protecting one community. It is about defending the moral architecture of democratic society itself.
Because history teaches a brutal lesson: when hatred of Jews becomes normalized, society itself is already in danger.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/01/07/audacity-jews-survive/From the Editor: The Audacity of the Jews to Survive
History has returned for the Jews. For 78 years following the end of World War II, the Jewish people enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and calm globally. There were rocky periods over this time and plenty of instances of antisemitic violence, from the Munich massacre to the AMIA bombing, but Jews overall were not suffering anywhere near the same pervasive persecution of previous eras. Then came Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded Israel and perpetrated the biggest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, broadcasting their savagery for the world to see. The Oct. 7 atrocities awoke a dormant beast: What followed, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, was a ferocious surge in antisemitic incidents — harassment, intimidation, and violence — around the globe.
Many observers, including Jewish leaders, have described this rise in hostility as a new phenomenon, with antisemitism reaching record levels. But the cold truth that Jewish communities need to recognize is that the world is returning to its pre-1945 norm, when bigotry against Jews was a far more common element of daily life. Of course, now there’s Israel, serving as a place of refuge with a standing military to protect Jews. And today most societies, both elites and the masses, don’t want to be seen as overtly antisemitic, unlike past eras when blatant prejudice and discrimination were more socially and culturally acceptable — often even a point of national pride. But make no mistake: Antisemitism will continue to be normalized and tolerated in a way that no other bigotry would be, including in the West.
If 2023 was the year history returned for the Jews and 2024 was when antisemitism began to normalize once the initial shock went away, then 2025 marked the moment the intifada went global. From Washington to Boulder, from Manchester to Sydney, calls from anti-Israel activists to “globalize the intifada” came to fruition with murderous antisemitic attacks.
Despite the gravity of this moment, discussions of Jews, Israel, and antisemitism, even among friends, have missed key fundamentals about the underlying dynamics of what led us here. Specifically, few people seem to understand what antisemitism really is and why it has proven to be the most enduring form of bigotry in the history of civilization. The answer illuminates why Jews must remain vigilant, practical, and appropriately cautious on one hand while simultaneously maintaining and sharing a deep sense of pride and comfort in the fact that they have faced much worse before and will endure this too. The Jewish people will live on, as their opponents of today fade into the distance.
Israel’s First Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (C) stands under a portrait depicting Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, as he reads Israel’s declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv, May 14, 1948, in this handout picture released April 29, 2008, by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO). Photo: REUTERS/Kluger Zoltan/GPO/Handout
An Unprecedented Story
The rabid opposition to Israel and steep rise in antisemitism we’ve seen worldwide over the past two years serve as a reminder that a sizable chunk of humanity deeply resents the will of the Jewish people both to survive and thrive in the face of intense persecution.
Indeed, a key reason for the persistence of antisemitism through millennia is that the story of the Jewish people seems too improbable to believe without invoking the conspiracy theory of the all-powerful Jew.
For the last 2,500-plus years, at least since the Babylonian exile, Jews have been expelled, slaughtered, and scapegoated in such a consistent and widespread way that is unique to the human experience of persecution. In short, antisemitism is civilization’s oldest, most entrenched hatred.
And yet, the Jewish people have endured and survived, collectively forming much of Western civilization’s moral, legal, and spiritual foundation with their ideas and teachings. More than that, Jews have thrived amid unparalleled adversity, becoming disproportionally successful in fields as diverse as law, medicine, and the arts.
To drive home the point, Jews have won about a quarter of all Nobel prizes, despite making up less than 0.2 percent of the world’s population.
How can such a tiny spec of humanity be so extensively persecuted but somehow, despite the obstacles, excel to such a degree? It doesn’t make any sense.
Israel’s story is similar. Only in the Jewish state are the same people worshiping the same God and speaking the same language that they did 3,000 years ago. Many people simply cannot understand that the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948 was the ultimate decolonization project, the return of an ancient people to their homeland in which they always maintained a presence and to which they never gave up deep connection.
Everything about the Jews and Israel seems to defy possibility and common sense: Such countries are not resurrected in history, and dead languages such as Hebrew are not revived.
And then consider the land itself: a tiny sliver of earth with a limited supply of natural freshwater, surrounded by larger enemies bent on the Jewish state’s destruction.
But rather than die, Israel survived to become the vibrant democracy, military juggernaut, and high-tech hub that we know today — a mini superpower surpassing its neighbors (and most of the world) in virtually all aspects of state power and quality of life.
The stories of Israel and the Jewish people are puzzles, and the pieces do not fit according to the typical rules of history. For too many people, antisemitic conspiracy theories provide a comforting answer to fill in the blanks to these mysteries.
Car in New South Wales, Australia graffitied with antisemitic message. The word “F**k” has been removed from this image. Photo: Screenshot
What Antisemitism Actually Is – and Why the Jews Are so Hated
Antisemitism isn’t bigotry as we typically understand it. Bernard Lewis, the late and preeminent historian of the Middle East, explained how “it is perfectly possible to hate and even to persecute Jews without necessarily being antisemitic.” How? Because “hatred and persecution are a normal part of the human experience.”
Antisemitism has two special features, Lewis argued, that make it a distinct form of bigotry. First, “Jews are judged by a standard different from that applied to others.” Second, and more importantly, is the “accusation of cosmic, satanic evil attributed to Jews,” the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else. The latter point is why, historically, it was rarely enough just to subjugate the Jewish people and force them to submit to a certain authority. No, the Jews had to be either expelled or slaughtered — after being scapegoated for society’s ills.
While racism is emotional, antisemitism is explanatory, an epistemic failure of the highest degree using a veneer of logic to promote a false version of reality. This is why podcasters and university professors get away with antisemitism but not racism: They can portray the former as a serious intellectual exercise. What they don’t say is that the lies of blood libel and Jewish control are what have always led to pogroms and even genocide.
Antisemitism is a virus of the mind that has gone through three historical mutations. In the Middle Ages, hatred and persecution of Jews were based on their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, hatred and persecution of Jews were based on their race. Today, hatred and persecution of Jews are more often based on their nation-state, Israel. As the late British chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks argued, “anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism.” With each new phase, antisemitism adapted to what became morally and intellectually acceptable — religious persecution fell out of fashion during the Enlightenment, and the same happened to racial persecution in the mid-20th century. Persecuting the Jewish state, however, is perfectly acceptable today, especially among cultural and political elites.
In the ancient world, Jews were initially hated for introducing monotheism to the world, practicing a system of laws and values requiring a level of discipline to which others were, frankly, unwilling to commit. And then through the years, Jews continuously refused to conform to the ruling empire of the day, maintaining their identity and practices. Naturally, this built resentment.
At the same time, Jews never sought to proselytize; they were content with their own community, happy to live among others but not particularly interested in expanding the tribe. This too built resentment.
To the gentile, Jews were an exclusive club — one could say a chosen people — which would neither submit to nor express much interest in outside forces. The former is a prime explainer for the prevalence of Islamic antisemitism; the latter helps explain the endurance of Christian antisemitism, with Jews never accepting Jesus.
After thinking about these issues for years, I have come to the simple conclusion that antisemitism is so persistent because people believe Jews are the “chosen people,” and they see in Israel that same chosenness. And they resent them for it.
There is a striking moment in Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto, when the Nazi leader concedes that the Jews might just be the chosen people — and seems to fear that his antisemitic plans may be doomed to fail.
“When … I scrutinized the activity of the Jewish people,” Hitler wrote, “suddenly there rose up in me the fearful question whether inscrutable destiny, perhaps for reasons unknown to us poor mortals, did not, with eternal and immutable resolve, desire the final victory of this little nation.”
Whether Jews actually are a chosen people isn’t the point. The antisemite sees the Jewish story and doesn’t express admiration but rather resentment and paranoia. To them, there is something particular about the Jews that simply defies explanation. They are worthy of unique hatred and scorn. Yes, Jews are often hated in specific situations for their God, or for being a successful minority, or other reasons that are often put forward. But underneath these explanations, often subconsciously, is the fear, hatred, and awe that the Jewish people have a divine spark. Many groups, from the West to East Asia (for example, China calling itself “the Middle Kingdom”), make a claim to chosenness, but bigots only single out the Jews for scorn as a result. Because deep down, they believe it.
If this argument sounds a bit vague and irrational, that’s the point. There’s a supernatural element of antisemitism that can’t be explained by logic, reason, or history. As Sacks wrote, antisemitism “is not a coherent set of beliefs but a set of contradictions. Before the Holocaust, Jews were hated because they were poor and because they were rich; because they were communists and because they were capitalists; because they kept to themselves and because they infiltrated everywhere; because they clung tenaciously to ancient religious beliefs and because they were rootless cosmopolitans who believed nothing.”
Because antisemitism is not simply about hatred of Jews but, rather, reflects an even more irrational belief that Jews are responsible for all the world’s ills, antisemites apply their views in such absurd, contradictory ways. It’s a shape-shifting virus that reveals more about the host than the Jews. As the journalist Vasily Grossman observed in his book Life and Fate, “Tell me what you accuse the Jews of — I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.”
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
The Line Between Criticism of Israel and Antisemitism
Anti-Zionists — those who either outright call for Israel’s eradication or, more cleverly, advocate policies that would ultimately lead to the same result — like to argue that people accusing them of antisemitism are simply trying to stifle their right to free speech in order to advance a political agenda. Therefore, it’s worth taking a moment to clarify that criticizing Israel is not antisemitic. Contrary to what certain dishonest voices may say, no Jew or Israeli or Zionist has actually made that argument. It is 100 percent fair game to oppose the actions and rhetoric of the Israeli government.
However, it is antisemitic to argue that Israel is an illegitimate entity whose very existence is a crime. Jews have always defined themselves — and historically were defined by others — as a people, not just a religion. To deny this reality and Jewish self-determination, to oppose Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation, is to attack the heart of Jewish identity. Unfortunately, this is the core message of the pro-Palestinian movement, whose leaders do not preach two states for two peoples but instead describe the world’s lone Jewish polity as a cancer to be eradicated.
To be more specific, criticism becomes bigotry when it involves demonizing and delegitimizing Israel. Accusing Israel of genocide or running an apartheid state is a demonstrable lie that can’t be labeled legitimate criticism. The same goes for describing Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, as a human rights abuser on the level of China and North Korea.
Those who support the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel employ such rhetoric as part of their campaign of economic warfare against the country. Such efforts seek to destroy the Jewish state through international pressure, undermining Israel to the point that it effectively ceases to survive. Think about the implications for Israeli Jews, who live in a region in which most governments and peoples have shown indifference to if not support for slaughtering Jews.
Moreover, now that the Jewish people have Israel and are not prepared to surrender it after 2,000 years of exile and persecution, the only way to replace Israel with Palestine is by forcibly taking it. That would mean killing or expelling millions of Jews. Those who know this but continue to advocate the anti-Zionist cause are antisemitic. And those anti-Zionists who do not realize this reality shouldn’t simply be able to plead ignorance and absolve themselves.
Imagine if someone demonized and sought to de-legitimize another country — say, Ireland — with the same obsessive hatred that the likes of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Ilhan Omar, Hasan Piker, Zohran Mamdani, and the leaders of Iran show Israel. Would they not be bigoted against the Irish? Of course they would.
But no one targets Ireland, or any other country, like so many people target Israel, despite its love of life, democratic system, commitment to freedom, and equal treatment under law. That’s the double standard of antisemitism in action.
Separating antisemitism from criticism of Israeli policy is not difficult. As with pornography, “I know it when I see it.”
But if that’s not enough, there are two simple tests to help decipher the difference.
A good rule of thumb is that, if you can take a statement and replace the words “Israel,” “Israeli,” and “Zionist” with “Jew,” “Jewish,” and “Jewish people,” and that statement then sounds like it came straight out of the Dark Ages or Nazi Germany, it is probably antisemitic. The same goes for replacing “Zionism” with “Judaism.” Just try it and see if that person calling to eliminate “vermin Zionists” or using the term “zio” or “israeli” — both always lowercased — is really just critical of Israeli policy.
Another test is to ask the following question: Is it just a coincidence that Israel happens to be the world’s only Jewish state? When someone accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza but pays little attention to any other conflict in the world, ask this question. When someone claims Israel has no strategic value to the US as an ally and should be cut off, ask this question. And when someone repeatedly promotes conspiracy theories involving Israel without evidence, ask this question. Eventually, it will become obvious when it is not just a coincidence.
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
The Will to Endure
The Jewish people have overcome great empires seeking to destroy them for millennia. Today, they have both reestablished their ancient homeland in the Land of Israel and thrived in the diaspora.
In short, Jews are no longer victims, which much of the world has become accustomed to and known them to be. This reality triggers bewilderment, which can lead to admiration. “All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?” Mark Twain wrote with wonder in an 1899 essay. Often, however, bewilderment with the Jewish story is combined with envy and resentment, paving the way for antisemitism.
The post-Oct. 7 world, one in which virulent opposition to Israel and rampant attacks on Jews have surged, marks the latest chapter of an old story.
Tragically, Jews around the world must face a harsh reality: The alarming surge of antisemitism over the past two years is not a new phenomenon but rather a return to the historical norm.
Education and exposure to Jews in one-on-one or small group situations can help combat antisemitism on an individual level, but ultimately there is no cure for the larger virus. Jews have always been, and continue to be, a scapegoat for the full spectrum of radicals — from Islamists, to far-right white supremacists, to far-left activists who blame Israel for all problems.
But the Jews will once again have the audacity to survive. And Israel, the haven for history’s most beleaguered people, isn’t going anywhere.
What does all this mean? In a sentence, antisemitism will endure, and so too will the Jews.
Aaron Kliegman is the executive editor of The Algemeiner.