How have Jewish communities and advocacy groups assessed Owens’s statements and her broader relationship with Jewish issues?
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Executive summary
Jewish communal leaders, mainstream advocacy groups and many Jewish writers have overwhelmingly condemned Candace Owens’s recent rhetoric as recycling long‑debunked antisemitic tropes and as contributing to a measurable spike in anti‑Jewish content from some right‑wing influencers [1] [2] [3]. Owens and some outlets she favors reject the label of antisemitism and portray criticism as politicized policing of dissent about Israel, leaving a sharp divide between her defenders and most organized Jewish institutions [4] [5].
1. Widespread institutional condemnation and rebuttals
Major Jewish outlets and communal voices have publicly rebutted Owens’s claims—Aish published pointed rebukes calling her assertions “nonsense” about the Talmud and the slave trade and praised Jewish writers who confronted her narratives [6] [7], while the Times of India and other international outlets documented broad backlash after she accused Jews of manipulating racial conflict and controlling the transatlantic slave trade, a claim historians and Jewish groups reject [1]. StopAntisemitism and other watchdog groups have singled her out for sustained criticism, even naming her “Antisemite of the Year,” reflecting organized advocacy alarm at what they describe as recurring anti‑Jewish themes in her output [3].
2. Advocacy groups, studies and data: tracking a growing problem
Quantitative analysis and advocacy reporting have framed Owens not as an isolated provocateur but as part of a rising pattern among right‑wing influencers; a study cited by the Times of Israel documented a 2025 spike in anti‑Israel and antisemitic rhetoric from figures including Owens, noting her public shift toward more open antisemitic content beginning in early 2025 [2]. That study and watchdog designations by groups like StopAntisemitism underpin Jewish advocacy efforts to catalogue and counter what they see as influence that can normalize tropes long associated with real‑world violence against Jews [3] [2].
3. Specific disputes and organizational pushback
When Owens leveled a claim that a rabbi bribed pastors to criticize her, the Israeli organization Ohr Torah Stone publicly rejected the allegation and stated it was focused on educational and communal work, underscoring how Jewish institutions often respond with firm denials and reputational defenses when targeted [8]. Jewish journalists and rabbis have also written open letters and analytic pieces to correct historical and theological errors in Owens’s statements, seeking to both delegitimize the claims and inoculate broader audiences against them [9] [6].
4. Owens’s response and competing narratives within the Jewish world
Owens has pushed back, dismissing the antisemitism label and accusing pro‑Israel organizations of diluting the definition of antisemitism to silence critics of Israeli policy; she publicly celebrated the “Antisemite of the Year” designation with an ironic video and framed criticism as political censorship [4]. Wikipedia and other overviews note that her stance on Israel and comments about “political Jews” contributed to a high‑profile rift with Ben Shapiro and her departure from The Daily Wire, illustrating how her rhetoric has real consequences for alliances within conservative and Jewish media circles [5].
5. The net assessment: alarm, rebuttal, and contested meanings
The dominant Jewish communal assessment portrayed in the reporting is alarm—groups and commentators characterize Owens’s claims as revivals of tropes (control of finance, slave trade conspiracies, questioning Holocaust facts) with tangible harms; they respond through public rebuttals, organizational statements, and documentation [1] [3] [6]. At the same time, Owens and sympathetic outlets insist she is being unfairly labeled and that critique of Israel is being conflated with antisemitism, producing a contested public debate in which community leaders and advocacy groups largely disagree with Owens’s framing [4] [2].