Where There is Science Skepticism and Intolerance Antisemitism Thrives

I’ll preface what follows with this comment. Normally, the issue of intolerance is not a subject for a science and technology blog. But in this case, there is a link between the lack of scientific acceptance with intolerance. More specifically antisemitism.

What made me start doing some background research on this subject was an article that appeared in a recent issue of MIT Technology Review, penned by Charlotte Jee. It is entitled “Covid conspiracy theories are driving people to anti-Semitism online.”

Jee describes how pandemic conspiracy theories are linked to the idea of a “New World Order” run by a cabal of secret societies headed up by Jewish elites. She notes that far-right and anti-vaxxer activists lead in spreading this disinformation to gain support among peers and fellow “compatriots.”

This is nothing new. Throughout European history and the legacy it spawned in the Americas, there has always been a current of antisemitism. Even in Soviet Russia, founded by Marxist revolutionaries, some of whom were Jews, antisemitic race theory lingered, a continuation from its Tsarist past whose propagandists spawned the New World Order myth and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

What’s disturbing is how these old tropes emerge during global crises. The current one is the global pandemic where some aspire to conspiracy theories spread over the Internet around issues such as:

• who is responsible for COVID-19,
• how the vaccines are a movement to impose world government,
• how 5G technology, the next generation in wireless communication causes COVID and once implemented will fry our brains, and
• how much Jewish scientists and businesses are behind all of it.

QAnon (see the picture at the top of this posting) is an online conspiracy theory group made prominent by its many supporters who participated in the January 6th, 2021 assault on the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. QAnon is all about deep state conspiracy theories that point to Jewish politicians, Jewish-run businesses (George Soros and the Rothschild family), and the insidious “Jewish-led Internet” headed by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sergey Brin of Google, both Jews. Among its many beliefs are:

• The coronavirus is a Communist and Jewish plot.
• The vaccines contain tiny microchips funded by Bill Gates who is not a Jew but somehow has become part of the narrative.
• The mRNA vaccine developed by Pfizer, headed up by Albert Bourla, a Greek Jew, will alter your DNA, make people infertile, and assert mind control over time.

Associating anti-science with antisemitism is nothing new. When European and North American Jews integrated into their largely Christian-dominated countries, they made considerable contributions to advancements in medicine and science. These achievements, however, have aroused the suspicions of a subset of the majority. European Jews haven’t been spared from stereotypical antisemitic tropes. Despite academic success, many were restricted from pursuing science. Albert Einstein is a good example of a Jewish scientist who managed to achieve breakthroughs in theoretical physics and cosmology that have changed the world despite having roadblocks thrown in front of him.

In North America, many Jewish success stories have come from very humble beginnings with European and Russian Jews migrating to the continent in the 19th century. Often seen by the majority as undesirable, Jews were accused of being disease spreaders, the source for cholera and typhus outbreaks, both rampant at the time. The diseases were referred to as “New York” diseases (the city name a euphemism for Jews). And in the city Jews were often rounded up and placed in quarantine every time a cholera or typhus outbreak emerged. The majority of society neglected to consider the state of sanitation and living conditions among New York’s urban poor as the reason for recurrent epidemics.

In the Soviet Union, founded by Marxists and Communists who had many Jewish thought leaders and followers, shortly after being established singled out Jewish scientists and intellectuals, arresting them and declaring them enemies of the people. Joseph Stalin talked about “Jewishness” science as contradicting the pseudoscience being preached by some very misguided friends of the Communist head of state. Stalin even managed to twist facts by combining anti-German, anti-Fascism and antisemitism altogether. When the war ended he launched a campaign against Jews liberated from the Nazis in the European Eastern Bloc countries. Jewish scientists, teachers, and intellectuals were incarcerated and killed. Within the Soviet Union itself, Jewish doctors were accused of conspiring to murder Soviet political leaders.

Today in Europe antisemitism is on the rise in places like Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Hungary’s leaders point to George Soros as chief of the Jewish conspirators attempting to create a New World Order. In Germany QAnon and the alt-right have been actively fueling the rise. Germany, in 2020, documented 1,909 antisemitic incidents coincident with the increase in COVID cases, and an increase from 881 antisemitic incidents the year before.

Among QAnon and right-wing conspiracy theorists, those who espouse Jews as seeking a New World Order exhibit in their rhetoric and actions strong anti-globalism, anti-science, technophobia and religious intolerance for any non-Christian perspectives. Even the pedophile conspiracy theories that QAnon followers have spread have Christian roots related to the “blood libel” claims against Jews dating back to medieval times.

In Jee’s article mentioned earlier in this posting, she refers to a report, Antisemitism in the Digital Age. It compiles the current state of conspiratorial antisemitism found not just on extreme social media sites, but also on mainstream sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

The report references 120 groups and channels on the social media site Telegram that have shared the Christchurch shooter’s manifesto railing against Muslims and Jews. The image below is lifted from one Telegram page that associates COVID directly with Jews.

Google searches in the UK using the phrase “New World Order” in March of last year reached their highest count in 15 years. TikTok content featuring hashtags #rothschildfamily, #synagogueofsatan, and #soros has been viewed 25.1 million times over a six-month period. Parler, which has almost no moderation of its content, is filled with antisemitic, white supremacist ideology. And Reddit features one forum dedicated to conspiracy theories that has seen growth to a half-million viewers over 10 months since being launched in 2020.

Twitter has failed to police its members spouting antisemitic conspiracy theories. One member alone has been doing this for more than eleven years and has accumulated 382,000 followers. His Twitter feed links COVID health misinformation with classic antisemitic rhetoric.

Youtube has also failed to stop the dissemination of antisemitic and white supremacist content. Videos on the site for years and viewed by millions continue to claim that Jews started the Second World War. Videos of American Jewish politicians accuse them of being disloyal to the United States. And there are videos that claim the Jews were responsible for 9/11. Even comments appearing after video views often contain blatant antisemitism.

Instagram, the junior partner of Facebook, has had millions of results showing up for the hashtag #newworldorder, and #illuminati. And Facebook, where antisemitism and the “Jewish world conspiracy” get significant play, provides no official figures for the degree of hate appearing on its site, but its reach of close to 3 billion across the world makes it a prime feeding forum for global intolerance, and for the spreading of anti-science antisemitism.

As a person who grew up in a family with Jewish cultural roots, that prized the pursuit of knowledge and scientific exploration, and that accepted people of all faiths and ethnicities into our home, it is sad for me to have to describe all of the above. I would think in the 21st century when we all face the common threats of a global pandemic, and climate change, we can rise above fears and prejudice. But that is, unfortunately, not what many of us do.