Common anti-Jewish tropes
Common anti-Jewish tropes
How to confidently not be an antisemite pt. 2: a non-exhaustive list of antisemitic tropes.
It is very possible to support Palestinian civilians without being antisemitic. However, this depends entirely on whether or not one has a good understanding of what antisemitism looks like and how it spreads. If you want a better understanding of what antisemitism looks like in the modern day, read my last post: how to confidently not be an antisemite.
Antisemitism has evolved so that while many people may not say hateful things directly about Jewish people, they will instead substitute the words ‘Israel’ or ‘Zionism’ for ‘Jewish’ when spreading hate speech, which then becomes disguised as political activism. Anti-Semitic supporters of the Palestinian movement will not distinguish between the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Israeli’ and ‘Zionist.’ Replacing the word ‘Zionist’ or ‘Israel’ with ‘Jewish’ when reading a sentence can act as a litmus test for antisemitism. For example:
‘Zionists are dogs.’ Replace Zionist with Jew = Jews are dogs.
‘Israel has all the power.’ Replace Israel with Jew = Jews have all the power.
‘Israel is a European privileged state.’ Replace Israel with Jews = Jews are European and privileged.
It is very possible to critique Israel and Zionism without perpetuating age-old stereotypes against Jewish people. However, when someone uses dehumanizing insults and age-old Jewish stereotypes attached to the word ‘Israel’ or ‘Zionists’ it is safe to say they are spreading Jewish hate disguised as modern-day social justice advocacy.
A non-exhaustive list of age-old Jewish tropes to avoid and call out:
Jews have all the power/control over the world/media/banks/governments
All of these claims are part of a lasting conspiracy that a secret Jewish power exists and controls everything. According to the American Jewish Committee, this trope is rooted in the discredited publication The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which accuses Jews of trying to control the world. Written in the early 20th century, the book pushes a conspiracy that Jews use influence to seek world domination. This text was written to scapegoat Jews, AKA blame them for all the bad things happening in the world. Unfortunately, this text is still sold in many Arab nations as a legitimate and authoritative text about Jewish people.
In 2024 this trope can look like this: ‘Israel has all the power’, ‘Zionist white supremacists seek to control the world’, ‘Jews fund the media,’ and ‘Hollywood has always been controlled by Zionists.’
‘Jews always act like victims’
This is something I have been called repeatedly in the last month. Attempts to iterate that Jews are self-victimizing aim to gaslight Jewish people out of their real and lived experiences with antisemitism. Two things can be true: Jewish people can be experiencing a stark rise in antisemitism, and the Israeli government can be killing Palestinian civilians. One does not cancel out the other. Jewish people have seen the result of worldwide dehumanization escalate into far worse, and we feel this fear in our entire bodies. The historic and present end goal of antisemitism is not to treat Jews like second-class citizens but to eradicate them from the face of the earth. Though the consequences of antisemitic language may not seem bad on the surface, for Jewish lives this results in hate crimes, a constant feeling of unsafety and hypervigilance, fear to proudly be who we are, and a fear that things will escalate into a second Holocaust.
This can look like: ‘Why should we talk about antisemitism when Palestinians are being killed?’ ‘Jews always play the victims’ ‘Why should we talk about Jews or antisemitism when we could be talking about the Palestinian death toll?’ ‘Jews are safe and another Holocaust is not going to happen’ ‘I’m tired of Jews using antisemitism as an excuse.’
Jewish Features
According to the American Jewish Committee, ‘the degradation of Jews through fictional facial stereotypes has been a staple theme in antisemitic propaganda used to portray Jews as subhuman or disfigured.’ The most common is a big hooked nose often grotesquely drawn, or referring to all Jews as white. Many Jewish people who don’t look this way are constantly told ‘You don’t look Jewish,’ as if being Jewish means one looks a certain way. These stereotypes aim to dehumanize Jews as ugly sub-human monsters.
‘True Jews’
In a comment, someone kindly informed me that if I did not discuss Palestinian death in every post about antisemitism I was not a ‘true Jew.’ This is a common assertion in 2024 - that Jews who do not actively reshare pro-Palestinian posts are not ‘true Jews.’ It is okay to disagree with a Jewish person’s opinion, but to tell Jewish people they are not a ‘true Jew’ because of what they choose to believe is antisemitic. ‘True Jews’ are people who are born Jewish, and the opinions they have on the Israel-Palestine conflict do not erase that. When push comes to shove, the world will always see Jews as Jews first, no matter what opinions they choose to share on social media. Hitler didn’t ask Jews if they were Zionists before he slaughtered them. Violence against Jewish people has never, and will never stop at a Jewish person’s opinions on the world.
Jews are white supremacist settlers who can go back to Europe or America
Many people try to whitewash Jewish history to project their own Western understanding of race, colonization, and oppression onto Israel and Jewish people in the Middle East. They assume Western society is the only society that colonizes while being completely ignorant of the history of Arab colonization throughout the Middle East. The Westernized logic of race and colonization is not only contextually inaccurate regarding how Middle Eastern identity politics and oppression work on the ground, but it is also heavily oversimplified. These narratives are used to justify arguments about sending all European Jews back to Europe, and all American Jews back to America.
Around 40% of Jews in Israel are Mizrahi, people who have descendants from North Africa, Central Asia, and all over the Middle East; including Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Lebanon and more. Over 2% of Israeli Jews are of Ethiopian descent. That makes the majority of Jews living in Israel ‘Jews of colour,’ the vast majority of them who were forced to flee to Israel as refugees to escape Jewish ethnic cleansing across the Arab world. While the Jewish presence across the Middle East used to be lively and abundant holding hundreds of thousands of Jews, there is now virtually none. It is estimated that around 15% of Jews in the United States are Jews of colour. This goes to show that when people whitewash Jewish history, they have shown that anti-oppression activism stops at Jewish people.
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