According to the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitic incidents in the US increased 57% in 2017. This is the largest increase since 1979. The October 2018 murders of 11 Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh have placed the spotlight on white supremacists, who are certainly an important component of the problem.

The idea that Jews are pure evil has its origins in Christianity. For centuries, the Jew was often portrayed as the killer of God, the anti-Christ, and Satan. Joshua Trachtenberg summarized how medieval Christendom saw the Jew thus: as “sorcerer, murderer, cannibal, poisoner, blasphemer.”

But focusing exclusively on the extreme right leads to major distortions in the analysis of the expanding antisemitism problem. Consider, for example, the one individual who most fervently and tenaciously spreads antisemitism in the US.

That individual is Louis Farrakhan, minister and leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), an African-American political and religious movement. NOI was formed in 1930, and its current membership is estimated at 20,000-50,000. Farrakhan qualifies for the title of foremost full-time American antisemite because of his use of a wide variety of antisemitic motifs.

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Farrakhan has called Judaism a “gutter religion” and “a religion of Satan.” He spews hate against the Jews as a people, and against the state of Israel. His incitement has persevered over the course of decades. In March of 1984, Farrakhan praised Adolf Hitler, calling him a “very great man.” Farrakhan is also a homophobe and an anti-white racist.

The Jewish Virtual Library has divided a selection of Farrakhan’s antisemitic statements into several categories.

One prominent category is conspiracy theories. Farrakhan asserts that Israeli and Zionist Jews played key roles in the 9/11 attacks, and that Jews received text messages warning them not to come to work on September 11.

In line with the “Jews are pure evil” motif, Farrakhan speaks about “satanic Jews.” In a 2018 sermon, he said that “satanic Jews” had infected the modern world with poison and deceit. The Jew as poisoner is another classic antisemitic motif. In the 14th century, during the Black Death plague, Jews were accused of poisoning streams and wells. Many were murdered because of these false accusations.

Farrakhan has also used the word “termites” to describe Jews, which echoes the language of the Nazis. By “biologizing” language, the Nazis turned Jews into “bacteria,” “vermin,” “parasites,” and other forms of sub-humans. In doing so, they laid the groundwork for genocide. Farrakhan’s choice of the word “termites” for Jews fits into this dehumanizing category.

In addition to his regular use of antisemitic tropes, Farrakhan also frequently states that “Jewish power is gigantic.” In the 1990s, he said that Jews are “a very small number of people, but they are the most powerful in the world.” He also said: “When you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door.” Farrakhan has claimed that Jews control the world, are the secret power behind global finance, and exert “a tremendous amount of influence on the affairs of government.” He claims that Israel and the Jews control both the Senate and House of Representatives, and refers to white people in important positions in Mexico as “Mexican Jews.” Farrakhan even blames the Jews for helping the Third Reich take power.

Farrakhan sometimes interweaves two antisemitic motifs. For example, he has said: “You [the Jews] have wrapped your tentacles around the US government.” This combines the hate motifs of gigantic Jewish power and Jews’ subhuman nature.

Dual loyalty, the most pervasive antisemitic motif in the world, is of course also in Farrakhan’s rotation. He compiled a list of Jews who have worked closely with US presidents and said, “Every Jewish person that is around the president is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States of America.”

In his November 2018 visit to Iran, Farrakhan addressed law students at Tehran University. At the end of his talk, Farrakhan and the students joined together to chant, “Death to Israel,” and, “Death to America.” Farrakhan also took the opportunity to declare the establishment of the State of Israel an “outlaw act” and accused the Jewish state of “thievery, lying, and deceit.”

One would have expected that within his movement, voices of protest would have been heard over the years against their leader’s extreme antisemitism. This has not occurred.

Alan Dershowitz has pointed out that while mainstream American figures generally keep their distance from notorious antisemites — none of them would sit down, for example, with white supremacist and antisemite David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan — many of them are perfectly willing to meet Farrakhan. A photo recently emerged of Barack Obama smiling beside Farrakhan at a 2005 meeting that had been arranged by the Black Caucus. Also, at the funeral of singer Aretha Franklin in August 2018, Farrakhan enjoyed celebrity-like status, sitting only two seats away from former president Bill Clinton.

Linda Sarsour, the Palestinian-American national co-chair of the Women’s March, has been a strong supporter of Farrakhan for years. In February 2018, another national co-chair of the Women’s March, Tamika D. Mallory, attended the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours’ Day event in Chicago. There, Farrakhan delivered an inflammatory keynote speech that included statements about “powerful Jews” whom he considers his enemies. While Mallory and Sarsour have condemned antisemitism, homophobia, and other forms of hatred, they have not renounced Farrakhan, which has prompted calls for them to resign.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has similarly called on seven Democratic law makers who sat down with Farrakhan for personal meetings while in office to resign: Andre Carson (D-Ind.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Danny Davis (D-Ill.), Al Green (D-Tex.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). There have also been condemnations of these meetings by other Democratic representatives.

In a democratic country, a man who is such a regular source of major hate speech should be brought before a court and condemned to jail. However, this is not possible in the US. But the truth remains that Farrakhan is the leading purveyor of antisemitism in the United States.

Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ is a Senior Research Associate at the BESA Center and a former chairman of the Steering Committee of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He specializes in Israeli–Western European relations, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism, and is the author of The War of a Million Cuts.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers, such as this one, are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.