This Is Not a Rise in Antisemitism — It’s a Pandemic of Jew-Hatred.

Calling what we are seeing a “rise in antisemitism” minimizes the reality: an ideological contagion that is spreading across movements, platforms, and demographics with alarming speed.

For the last few years, I have repeatedly heard a phrase uttered by politicians, activists, and commentators that has irritated me.

“The rise in antisemitism.”

Calling what is aggressively permeating American society and popular and political culture a “rise in antisemitism” vastly understates the problem because it makes the phenomenon sound like a temporary increase in incidents or statistics.

What we are actually dealing with is something far more pervasive than a statistical uptick. It is an ideological contagion. It is spreading across political movements, social media platforms, and countries.

This ideological contagion is not only spreading among predictable quarters. It is also radicalizing people in demographics that have not historically been associated with anti-Jewish prejudice — and certainly not with violence against Jews.

That is why I describe it as a pandemic of Jew-hatred rather than a mere rise.

What we are witnessing fits that pattern: ideas that once existed at the fringes are now circulating at scale, crossing from subcultures into mainstream discourse, and radicalizing new audiences in the process.

It is a rapid, cross-border spread of an ideological pathogen.

It is embedding itself in political language. In digital culture. In social movements.

It is not a momentary spike in hostility toward Jews.

A pandemic, by definition, is not merely a disease that exists — it is a disease that has escaped containment. It spreads across borders. It jumps between populations with no prior exposure or immunity. It overwhelms the institutions designed to check it.

Jew-hatred is no longer confined to the ideological communities that have historically incubated it. It has traveled from community to community with remarkable speed and relatively little resistance.

And like any pandemic pathogen, it mutates as it spreads — it adapts its language. It finds new hosts. But the core is unchanged: the same hatred, only repackaged.

I have spent over ten years focused on tracking and combating extremism, mostly Jew-hatred and antisemitic movements.

After a decade in this space, I understand how it works, the conspiracies and the accelerants and the specific moments that send recruitment and radicalization spiking.

The COVID pandemic was one of the most significant radicalization events for Jew-hatred in a generation. An ancient libel of Jews as poisoners and plague-bringers fused seamlessly with vaccine conspiracies and pandemic-profiteering narratives.

That fusion pulled in people who had never previously identified with antisemitic movements.

So I am clear-eyed about what follows when I use the word pandemic to describe what is happening to American society and around the world.

It will be weaponized, but there is no alternative.

Because the alternative — softening the diagnosis, calling it a ‘rise’ or a ‘trend’ or an ‘uptick’ — is negligent. And a disease that goes undiagnosed gets worse, and it gets worse quickly and often quietly, until it destroys the host.

In the coming weeks and months, I will share more data, evidence, and analysis on what I have tracked and observed over the past decade, some of which I have already shared on social media.

But the solution for this is not a vaccine — I am sure some conspiracy theorists will accuse me of suggesting otherwise — or even severe content moderation, which is neither feasible nor effective.

You can no longer deplatform someone effectively, and in fact, in this new era, attempting to do so will backfire and spread the Jew-hatred further.

But acknowledging the urgency and danger of this pandemic is essential, because I still deal with ordinary people — reasonable people — who deny it. Who say it is fueled by the intelligence agencies of foreign nations, by a particular political party, by bots or troll farms.

Here is what that denial looks like in practice.

For example, I still hear claims that Candace Owens is on the fringe, that only “very online” people are aware of her, or that she is merely focused on exposing the crimes and corruption of the Israeli government.

Well, very online people are still human beings who become radicalized, vote or do not vote in elections, and commit acts of violence.

And the dangerous, Jew-hating bile that Candace disseminates to her millions of fans has nothing to do with holding the Israeli government accountable — in fact, it actively undermines that goal.

Candace has an enormous, dedicated, and loyal audience — made up mostly of women who would have once been called normie moms.

Women who work outside the home, women who work at home, who are responsible directly or indirectly for their children’s education, who dutifully and lovingly attend their kids’ sports events. Women who have voted for Republicans and Democrats in past elections.

People have a hard time believing it until I show them example after example.

“How did this happen?” they ask me. “How is this happening in the United States of America?”

A pandemic is global by definition, and this one is no exception.

But Americans who treat Jew-hatred as a foreign import — as something that arrived here from Europe, from the Middle East, from the internet — are wrong.

After finally opening its doors to Jews — after decades of restriction and quotas, after turning away the S.S. St. Louis, many of whose passengers were later murdered in the Holocaust — the United States became a haven: a place where they have thrived and often felt safe.

But that haven was always conditional, always fragile.

The hatred of Jews is a deeply American phenomenon. We have exported it and imported it, traded in it freely across borders and generations.

It is as American as Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.

---

If you’re not the type who likes to subscribe, you can also make a one-time donation to support this work by clicking here: make a one-time donation.

For other ways to support my work like Venmo, etc., click here: Other Ways to Support My Work

---

Please follow me on Twitter (X), Instagram, Facebook, Threads, BlueSky, and TikTok.

Also, be sure to check-out my Instagram broadcast channel for breaking news alerts and my WhatsApp channel for voice notes from me.

If you have a tip, you can contact me at 310-795-2497 or currentyashar@gmail.com. I am available on Signal, WhatsApp, and Confide. My direct messages are also open on Twitter and Instagram.