In July 2018, Kartik Ashok, a UC Santa Cruz alumnus, and former student government member embarked on a 72-hour anti-Semitic rant on the school’s official Facebook page. During his tirade, Ashok referenced a wide array of anti-Jewish conspiracy theories from both right-wing and left-wing sources. He concluded his diatribe with a direct threat aimed at a Jewish student, Maya Novak-Herzog. “Hey, Jewish cunt,” Ashok wrote, “I own firearms and would love to use you as target practice.”

Several students posted comments condemning Ashok for his anti-Semitism. The UC Santa Cruz Police department contacted Ashok’s parents and learned that the alum now lived in India and had no plans to return to the U.S. anytime soon. Based on this information, UCSC PD concluded that there were no further steps to take and closed the investigation.

On October 27, 2018, Richard Bower, the author of many online rants similar to Kartik Ashok’s brought one of his firearms inside a Pittsburgh synagogue and used eleven Jews as target practice.

Kartik Ashok’s posts fascinated me more than any of the hundreds of anti-Semitic threads I had seen online before. In his rant, Ashok mixed rhetoric from both right-wing and left-wing schools in a seemingly incoherent fashion. In one sentence, Kartik launched into a Hitlerian diatribe, excoriating Jews as “parasites” who promote “race mixing,” “deviancy,” and “Wealth hoarding.” He hinted that Jews deserved the persecution inflicted upon them by their “European hosts.” However, a few sentences later Ashok uses leftist lingo, blasting Jews as “White supremacist imperialists,” “the worst kind of racists” who seek the detriment and destruction of all “Brown people.” In other words, Jews are responsible for the corruption of the White race but are also white supremacists culpable for the suffering of non-Whites.

Underneath the confounding inconsistencies in Kartik Ashok’s argument lies a disturbing truth. Ashok uses far-right and left-wing rhetoric which originates from the same source; centuries-old lies, fabrications, and distortions about Jews. The seemingly contradictory anti-Semitic arguments Kartik makes are actually the same argument repackaged to appeal to different audiences.

In a 2016 speech at the European Parliament, British MP Jonathan Sachs labeled anti-Semitism a virus which has “mutated” to survive for thousands of years. This article explores how ancient, seemingly outdated anti-Semitic tropes have been reconfigured for far-right and leftist consumption.

Understanding the Original Lies Behind Anti-Semitism

Fabrications, deceptions and outright lies, some dating back hundreds and even thousands of years, serve as the basis for all anti-Semitism today. In the post-classical era, anti-Semitism was predominantly disseminated by clergy and religious institutions as a means to rally their supporters, consolidate power and foster fear in conspicuous nonconforming groups. Post-classical Christians persecuted Jews as “Christ killers” (a position officially maintained by the Catholic church until Vatican II in 1959). Later religious leaders such as Muhammad and Martin Luther treated Jews warmly at first but then persecuted them after the Jewish community refused to adopt their religious ideologies.

In middle age Europe, Christians demonized Jews as “infidels,” and “unbelievers.” A series of explosive anti-Semitic lies further rallied the public against Jews. In 12th Century England, a British monk claimed that Jewish councils abducted local Christian children for ritual sacrifice and consumption of their blood. This accusation culminated in the murder of countless Jews across Europe and led to the expulsion of all English Jewry in 1290. In 14th Century France, rioters massacred their Jewish neighbors after rumors spread that the Jews spread the Black Plague to their villages by poisoning wells. Middle age Christians also levied the fraudulent charge, “host desecration” against the continent’s Jews. This vile hoax accused Jews of eating human flesh and drinking Christian blood. Resurrections of the medieval Jewish blood libel led to pogroms in Russia (1903), Iran (1910) and Ukraine (1913).

As Europe turned away from fundamentalist religiosity during the enlightenment, propagandists repackaged old anti-Semitic tropes and fabrications into forms fit for current post-religious consumption. This reconfigured anti-Semitism remains the basis of present-day far right-wing and leftist Jew-hatred.

Understanding Right-Wing Anti-Semitism

In the late 19th and early 20th century, many Europeans traded traditional religious dogma for a similar obsession with questions of society, nation, and race. In some right-wing circles, the deviancy once attributed to Jews because of their religious and insular tribal rituals morphed into a hatred of Jews because of their race, social standing and transnational connection to one another. The racial hatred towards Jews fomented in this period fuels present-day right-wing anti-Semitism.

Far right-wing anti-Semites believe that Jews are inherently devious, subversive and dangerous because of their race. Instead of desecrating their hosts physically by drinking their blood as believed in the middle ages, Jews now desecrate their hosts morally by promoting social and sexual degeneracy in the media, economically by controlling and manipulating financial institutions and culturally by inviting non-White immigrants to replace white citizens in both the United States and Europe. Far-right anti-Semites also surmise that because Jews cannot change their race, no interventions can improve the Jew’s duplicitous nature and he will, therefore, pose a permanent threat to the moral fabric of White society.

Understanding Leftist Anti-Semitism

During the 1950s and 1960s, the United States built and expanded their alliance with Israel. During the same period America’s hegemonic rival, the Soviet Union, strengthened ties with Arab nations. Throughout the next several decades, the Soviet’s disseminated loads of anti-Israel propaganda in the Arab World, among their allies in the developing world, and among their leftist followers in the West. However, rather than attack Israel’s policies, the Soviet rhetoric focussed on delegitimizing Israel among its western leftist followers by equating Zionism (Jewish statehood) with colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. The Soviets also recycled anti-Semitic tropes to demonize Israel among its Arab neighbors and in the developing world. The USSR introduced propaganda scapegoating Zionism as a racist covert force against every national movement of Brown and Black liberation in Central America and Africa. Soviet propaganda also alleged that an international Zionist conspiracy served as puppet masters for the Western media and American policy. Finally, the Soviets equated Zionism with White supremacy in their official state texts and alleged that Nazis and Zionists engaged in significant collaboration during WWII. The most significant achievement in the history of Soviet anti-Zionism came in 1975 when the USSR authored United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 declaring that Zionism was “a form of racism and racial discrimination.” The resolution passed with a coalition of Eastern European Soviet Satellite States, Arab Nations, and USSR aligned developing nations in Latin America and Africa voting yes.

Classic anti-Semitic tropes about covert Jewish global and financial domination easily entered the American Left’s lexicon as it was specifically coded for their consumption. Overt demonizations of Jews based on race or religion wouldn’t have gained traction in leftist circles. However, the Left was all too eager to accept and embrace the same anti-Jewish distortions and fabrications about secret Jewish world domination and a tiny Jewish state causing suffering across the globe because Soviet propaganda cloaked old anti-Semitic tropes under the veil of anti-Zionism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and anti-racism. Within one generation, anti-Semitism on the global Left mutated back into its most virulent form. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 1903 Russian hoax which combined the medieval Jewish blood libel lie with fabricated documents of International Jewish conspiracy and criminality enjoyed a resurgence in the Arab world. In 1991 the Chicago-based Nation of Islam published the “Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews,” which accused Jews of dominating the transatlantic slave trade.

Arabic language cartoon combining the anti-Semitic blood libel (Jews as consumers of human flesh and blood) with depictions of American and Israeli policy.

Tracing the Mutation of Anti-Semitism

Here is a roadmap I made demonstrating how old anti-Semitic lies and tropes mutate into eerily similar far right and leftist anti-Semitism.

Original Anti-Semitic Lie: Judaism is an inherently demonic religion/set of tribal rituals. Therefore, Jewish rituals mandate Jews to kill prophets and destroy righteousness. Prescription: Demonize Judaism and cleanse society of the Jewish Religion

Far-Right Mutation: Jews are an inherently devious race. Therefore, their racial heritage mandates them to destroy society by controlling the media and introducing moral depravity into White-European society. The Jews are committing White Genocide. Prescription: Demonize the Jewish race and cleanse the press/public life of the nefarious influence of Jews

Jews are an inherently devious race. Therefore, their racial heritage mandates them to destroy society by controlling the media and introducing moral depravity into White-European society. The Jews are committing White Genocide. Demonize the Jewish race and cleanse the press/public life of the nefarious influence of Jews Leftist Mutation: Zionism is an inherently racist ideology. Therefore, Israel’s charter mandates it to practice discrimination and perpetrates genocide. Prescription: Demonize Zionism and cleanse the Middle East of Israel

2. Original Anti-Semitic Lie: Jews kidnap Christian children to bake unleavened bread (Matzos) with their blood. Prescription: Root out and expose your Jewish neighbors to protect local children. Stigmatize their existence and kill them.

Far-Right Mutation: Jewish men are sexual perverts who prey upon Gentile women and influence impressionistic Gentile children with their public depravity through the media. Jews also advocate for Blacks and Hispanics to enter the country and prey upon white women. Prescription:Root out and expose Jews in the media to protect Gentile women and children. Stigmatize and eventually criminalize interracial relations.

. Leftist Mutation: Israeli Doctors kidnap Palestinian children to harvest their organs. Israeli Professors, artists, musicians, and authors engage in Zionist propaganda and crimes. Prescription: Root out and expose Israeli doctors working internationally to protect children and patients. Ban them from international organizations and medical foundations. Stigmatize Israeli academia and launch an academic boycott against Israeli professors. Stigmatize Israeli culture and publicly shame international artists who perform in Israel and collaborate with Israelis.

3) Original Anti-Semitic Lie: Tribal Jewish rituals and religion seek to destroy the state religion. Jews are disloyal citizens who are only loyal to their tribe and foment chaos abroad. Prescription: Inquisition, forced conversions, forced expulsions.

. Far-Right Mutation: Jews operate as a cartel. They are disloyal to their home countries and only have allegiance to other Jews. International Jewish interests are responsible for global wars around the world. Prescription: Purge of local Jewish interests. Hostile inquiry into which people among them identify as Jews.

. Leftist Mutation: Israel works in tandem with international Zionist interests to foment chaos all over the world. Zionists are responsible for ALL of the current sectarian conflicts and violence across the Middle East. Prescription: Purge of suspected Zionists. Hostile inquiry into which Jews among them identify as Zionists.

4) Original Anti-Semitic Lie: Jewish tax collectors and money lenders cause the suffering, failures, and struggles of local non-Jews. Prescription: Mobilize local congregations to fight against local Jewish misdeeds.

. Far-Right Mutation: The actions of an international Jewish conspiracy causes the suffering, failures, and struggles of White Europeans/White Americans. Prescription: Mobilize White people against Jewish organizations and institutions

. Leftist Mutation: Racist international Jewish financiers organized the Black slave trade and European colonizations causing the suffering, failures, and struggles of Black and Brown people. The present-day Israel lobby continues this legacy and aims to create suffering for brown people everywhere by covertly stifling national liberation movements across the world. Prescription: Mobilize people of color to fight Zionist racism

5) Original Anti-Semitic Lie: Judaism and Jewish tribal customs preach Jewish superiority and instruct them to dominate their inferior neighbors. Prescription: Local effort (usually parishes/religious congregations) to intimidate, rob or kill Jewish neighbors.

Far-Right Mutation: Jewish Marxists seek to destroy the market economy and dominate their Gentile neighbors by using the state to dispossess them. Ultimately, Marxist Jews aspire to rule over a global utopian communist state. Prescription: Combined effort from all patriotic nationals to protect their nations from the Jewish communist plot.

Jewish Marxists seek to destroy the market economy and dominate their Gentile neighbors by using the state to dispossess them. Ultimately, Marxist Jews aspire to rule over a global utopian communist state. Combined effort from all patriotic nationals to protect their nations from the Jewish communist plot. Leftist Mutation: Israel is an imperialist, capitalist and colonial enterprise. Israel seeks to take over the entire Middle East. The two blue lines on the Israeli flag represent the Zionist aspiration to conquer all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon and the Euphrates River in Iraq. Prescription: Combined international effort to protect the Middle East from Zionist Imperialism.

Identity and Disease

I attended the University of California-Santa Cruz, one the most liberal Universities in the United States. During my time at the school, I met many people who didn’t know much about Jews or Israel but considered “anti-Zionism” to be a significant part of their identities. I spoke to several students who didn’t know precisely what Zionism meant but knew it to be indistinguishable from colonialism, imperialism, capitalism. Most of these students weren’t anti-Semitic and would be appalled by overt attacks against Jews based on their race or religion. Most of them fought for the rights of the oppressed and strived for a socially just world. However, many of them also believed that powerful Zionist financiers controlled market economies and shaped Western policies and thought that the nation of Israel was a genocidal, apartheid regime responsible for conflicts and suffering all over the world. These students were spoon fed anti-Semitism in personalized messages tailored to mesh with their political beliefs, moral convictions, and personal identities. They were taught to equate a hyperbolized version of Zionism (based on old anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews) with the real pain, trauma and suffering many of them felt in their own lives. Criticizing specific Israeli policies in the same manner as other nation-states does not constitute anti-Semitism. However, scapegoating the world’s only Jewish nation-state as the cause of suffering for brown people, queer people and poor people across the globe is anti-Semitic.

Anti-Semitism is at its core a symptom of a diseased brain, a manifestation of delusional conspiratorial thinking, self-hatred and scapegoating. Kartik Ashok possesses such a sick mind. Mel Gibson, who ranted that “Jews started all the wars” during a DUI arrest and later threatened to murder his girlfriend in a paranoid drunken rant he left on her voicemail, has a similar disposition. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert Bowers will soon be shown to have a equally diseased brain when the details of his dysfunctional personal life come to light. Before Adolf Hitler was the fuhrer of Germany, he was a homeless man living on the streets of Vienna. He was unemployed, unkempt and unhinged. Many of the most ideologically fervent Nazis, including Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, and Adolf Eichmann, suffered from social isolation, drug addiction, and mental illness before their rise to prominence during the 3rd Reich. These were not robust, powerful men but rather shadowy figures living on the fringes of society. Today, many of the internet vigilantes in the Alt-Right and modern White supremacist movement fit this mold. They are young men with diseased brains who have found a space in their social isolation to congregate with other similarly afflicted young men with sick minds.

All anti-Semitism, whether religiously motivated, racially motivated, right-wing or leftist are manifestations of the same underlying disease. The Jews have thrived for centuries as an insular and largely misunderstood culture. Jewish tribalism garners suspicion, while Jewish Success breeds resentment. There is something about the Jewish people, who compromise less than one-tenth of one percent of the global population which gnaws at the imaginations, fears, and insecurities of the people around them. Consequently, Anti-Semitic narratives mutate between different ideologies and adapt from generation to generation so well because in its essence anti-Semitism is not about Jews but rather how Jews make anti-Semites feel about themselves.