What are common antisemitic conspiracy theories and where did they originate
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Executive summary
Antisemitic conspiracy theories recycle a small set of core myths — secret world control, collective culpability for political events, criminality, and dual loyalty — rooted in medieval Christian calumnies and amplified by modern forgeries and political propaganda [1] [2]. Those tropes were systematized by texts like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and by targeting of wealthy Jewish families such as the Rothschilds, and today spread rapidly online and through partisan media, with measurable spikes after crises [3] [4] [5].
1. Medieval origins: blood libel, disease scapegoating and religious hostility
Many of the building blocks of modern antisemitic conspiracism begin in the Middle Ages, when Jews were accused of ritual murder of Christian children and blamed for plagues — narratives that turned a minority into a ready scapegoat and established the template of secret, malevolent Jewish influence [1] [2].
2. The Protocols: a modern forgery that created a global conspiracy story
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fabricated text first circulated in the early 20th century, is widely credited with popularizing the notion of an international Jewish conspiracy and became “the most significant document for propagating the myth of a Jewish world conspiracy,” seeding later themes like Jewish Bolshevism and global control [3].
3. Financial control tropes and the Rothschild myth
Claims that Jews secretly run banks, markets or governments coalesced in the 19th century around visible Jewish financiers — most famously the Rothschild family — whose real wealth was mythologized into an image of omnipotent puppet‑masters controlling wars and economies [4] [6].
4. Political repackaging: from “Jewish world conspiracy” to blame for modern events
Older myths have been repurposed to explain contemporary politics: conspiracists often conflate Jewish people with the State of Israel, hold “Jews” collectively responsible for Israeli government actions, or accuse Jewish actors of manipulating social movements — a pattern visible in recent false claims that Israel or Jews orchestrated high‑profile incidents [5] [7].
5. Ideological cross‑pollination and state propaganda
Antisemitic conspiracies have been adaptable: they underpinned both right‑wing and state‑sponsored campaigns (e.g., Nazi and Soviet uses of conspiratorial tropes) and were transposed into Arab and other regional variants in the 20th century, showing how the same core myths serve different political agendas [1] [3].
6. Crisis, media and online amplification
Scholars and civil‑society groups link spikes in conspiracy belief to crisis moments and to media ecosystems that reward simplicity; social platforms magnify sudden surges in antisemitic narratives after events, as documented by rapid rises in posts following public incidents [8] [5].
7. Enduring templates and the costs of repetition
Organizations that track antisemitism warn that the same templates — world control, dual loyalty, secret plots, and denial or distortion of the Holocaust — recycle across eras and languages, producing real‑world violence and policy impacts when amplified by leaders or influencers [9] [10] [11].
8. Counter‑narratives and definitions used to identify conspiracism
Efforts to identify and counter these conspiracies include working definitions of antisemitism that name the “myth about a world Jewish conspiracy” and guidance from historical scholarship and civil‑society resources that trace myths to their origins and contemporary permutations [7] [9] [4].