Shared Future Lab
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The accusation of “weaponizing antisemitism”
What happens when naming a danger is treated as evidence of a plot?
Start with a familiar argument. Then follow its history, the threats Jews have faced, and what happened after they raised the alarm.
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01 A familiar defense
Antisemitism, an influential political figure argued,
“was merely an accusation that Jews used to silence criticism and squash free speech.”
Historian David Nirenberg’s summary, quoted by Dara Horn.
The figure Horn identifies
Horn recounts Nirenberg’s example of Hitler contesting accusations of antisemitism and winning libel suits against newspapers.
These are Nirenberg’s words describing the argument, rather than a verbatim quotation from Hitler.
Dara Horn’s essay · passage on PDF page 9 ↗The defense has a history. Its credibility depends on the evidence it asks us to dismiss.
02 Before it was an accusation
Wilhelm Marr helped establish the modern political vocabulary of antisemitism in the late 1870s. It gave older hostility toward Jews a secular, supposedly factual presentation.
Marr · 1879
“Written without a trace of religious prejudice”
His pamphlet nevertheless cast Jews as an enemy that had conquered German society. He described his own rhetoric as a
“cry of pain from one of the oppressed.”Read Marr’s words · German History in Documents and Images ↗
The speaker presented himself as the injured party. Jewish participation in society became evidence of Jewish domination.
The term’s political target was Jews. Its resemblance to the name of a language family does not make it a general term for hostility to every speaker of a Semitic language.
History of the term · US Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗03 The history behind the fear
A condensed history of mass violence, coercion, and the reasons given for them.
66 CE · Alexandria
Josephus describes anti-Jewish violence followed by Roman soldiers killing residents and burning homes. He reports 50,000 dead, including children and older people. That figure is Josephus’s ancient account.
Josephus · Jewish War 2.487–499, especially 2.497 ↗70 CE · Jerusalem
Rome destroyed Jerusalem and its Temple. The Arch of Titus later celebrated the Roman victory, depicting soldiers carrying away the Temple’s treasures.
The monument’s official historical account ↗
1096 · Rhineland
During the First Crusade, Jews in cities including Worms and Mainz were massacred. Hostility toward Judaism helped turn neighbors into targets of religious violence.
Historical overview · USHMM ↗1348–1349 · Europe
False accusations of poisoning wells helped justify attacks on Jewish communities during the Black Death.
The well-poisoning accusation · USHMM ↗Late 1400s · Spain
The Inquisition prosecuted converts suspected of practicing Judaism. In 1492, the expulsion decree blamed contact with Jews for Christians’ religious disloyalty and ordered Jews out—even those native to the kingdoms.
“as much those who are natives as those who are not”The expulsion decree · translated primary text ↗The Inquisition and expulsion · PBS ↗
1933–1945 · Nazi Europe
Nazi laws stripped Jews of rights and citizenship. Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered six million Jews, presenting Jewish existence as a danger to society.
The Nuremberg Laws · USHMM ↗The Holocaust · USHMM ↗1941 · Baghdad
Anti-Jewish propaganda and political upheaval preceded the pogrom. Rioters killed 150–180 Jews in two days, injured hundreds, and looted Jewish homes and businesses.
The Farhud · USHMM ↗1946 · Kielce, Poland
A false accusation involving a Christian child triggered a massacre of Jews after the war. The old blood libel returned as survivors tried to rebuild their lives.
The postwar massacre · USHMM ↗04 Perpetually foreign
Theodor Herzl · 1896
“In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers”The Jewish State · translated primary text ↗
Herzl described loyal citizenship and contributions to national life failing to secure acceptance. Spain’s decree had explicitly expelled native-born Jews. Nazi racial laws later made ancestry a barrier that conversion could not overcome.
In a different political setting, Hamas’s 1988 covenant describes its struggle against “Zionist invaders.” The Roman monument above records the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem almost two millennia earlier.
Hamas covenant · Article 7 ↗Our reading of the pattern: Jews can be cast as outsiders where they have lived for centuries—and as foreign intruders in their ancestral homeland. Jewish belonging and Palestinian belonging both need a future.
05 And then the world learned?
Postwar America did not instantly become free of anti-Jewish exclusion.
Kirsten Fermaglich’s A Rosenberg by Any Other Name examines court petitions and archival records of Jewish name changing, discrimination, and civil-rights activism.
Horn draws on this history to describe employment applications that screened for Jewish identity—including questions about earlier names and family names. Jewish organizations fought to change those practices.
Fermaglich’s book · NYU Press ↗Horn’s discussion · approximately 44:40–46:35 ↗The question that remains
Removing discriminatory barriers was an achievement won through organizing and legal change. Horn asks whether being able to pass as non-Jewish was mistaken for full acceptance.
That question returns whenever Jews feel they must hide a name, necklace, kippa, or connection to Israel to participate safely.
06 Did they mean it?
Threats deserve examination alongside the speaker’s authority, program, and conduct.
Haj Amin al-Husseini · March 1, 1944
“Kill the Jews wherever you find them.”
Al-Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, broadcast this call in Arabic from Berlin while collaborating with Nazi Germany. He presented killing Jews as a sacred duty and a defense of Arab rights.
Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948. This explicit call to kill Jews preceded the state’s existence by more than four years.
English translation reproduced by historian Jeffrey Herf, with a citation to the wartime FCC monitoring record in the US National Archives.
Herf’s account · Section VI, footnote 40 ↗His wartime broadcasts and collaboration · USHMM ↗Arab League secretary-general · 1947
In an October 11 interview, Azzam Pasha expressed hope that Jews would not force a war, then said it would involve
“a war of elimination”
and “a dangerous massacre”
He also described large-scale looting and ended by presenting the anticipated violence as a defensive fight that left his conscience clear.
Akhbar el-Yom · October 11, 1947. These excerpts follow the translation linked below. The familiar “momentous massacre” wording appears in a different English rendering; later reproductions often misdate the interview to May 1948 or omit its opening clause.
Original newspaper scan, translation, and provenance ↗Hamas covenant · 1988
Article 7 incorporates a religious passage envisioning Jews being hunted and killed:
“there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
The text places this passage within the organization’s account of its mission. The target in the passage is Jews.
Read Article 7 in full · Yale’s Avalon Project ↗Ali Khamenei · June 2018
Iran’s then supreme leader called Israel a
“malignant cancerous tumor”
and said it had to be
“removed and eradicated”
The demand concerns Israel’s disappearance. It deserves scrutiny alongside Iran’s policies and support for armed groups.
Contemporaneous report reproducing the statement · June 4, 2018 ↗October 7, 2023 · and the immediate aftermath
The Hamas-led attack brought mass killing and hostage-taking. Contemporaneous records also documented celebrations and praise:
Southern Gaza: Reuters photographer Bassam Masoud recorded people celebrating after the infiltration and rocket attacks.
Dated photographic record · October 7, 2023 ↗Berlin: Samidoun-linked activists distributed sweets to celebrate the attack, documenting the celebration on their own social media.
Contemporaneous reporting · Reuters ↗Iran’s parliament: State television showed members rising to chant “Death to Israel,” according to Reuters.
Reuters’s account of international reactions ↗These records identify particular participants. Their celebration matters without assigning it to an entire people.
If a threat is explicit, violence follows, and people celebrate it, what evidence supports saying the danger was imaginary?
07 Warning → what followed
Three dated records of Jewish concern, followed by later attacks or institutional findings. Each pairing addresses a specific concern.
The warning · October 2, 2014
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks warned about attacks on synagogues, museums, and Jewish public life in Europe. Jews were questioning whether they could remain safely.
Sacks’s dated essay ↗What followed · January 9, 2015
The Hyper Cacher attack in Paris targeted Jewish shoppers. President François Hollande later identified the victims as killed because they were Jews.
French president’s account · January 27, 2015 ↗The warning · Horn’s 2024 essay
Horn described the difficulty of getting institutions to recognize anti-Jewish intimidation and exclusion—including the argument that reporting antisemitism was an attempt to silence others.
Read Horn’s account ↗Later institutional findings · April 2025
Harvard’s own task force investigated Jewish and Israeli experiences and reported barriers to participation in university life. These findings corroborated concerns about campus conditions; they were not a forecast of a new attack.
Harvard’s full task-force report ↗The concern · February 12, 2025
56%AJC’s report, based on fall 2024 surveys, found that a majority of American Jewish respondents had changed behavior because of antisemitism.
AJC · report and survey context ↗What followed · May–June 2025
Two Israeli embassy staffers were killed after an event at Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum on May 21. On June 1, people walking for hostages in Boulder were attacked with incendiary devices.
Federal prosecutors brought hate-crime charges in both cases. The linked records describe allegations and charges.
Washington · DOJ record ↗Boulder · DOJ record ↗Warnings can be evaluated. Calling them a “Zionist plot” does not answer the evidence they contain.
08 Solidarity in both directions
Heschel joined the voting-rights march
“legs were praying”
He understood the struggle against racism as a moral and spiritual responsibility.
King spoke for Soviet Jews
“brothers and sisters who happen to be Jews in Soviet Russia”
King’s solidarity included Jews facing persecution. Their freedom belonged within the same moral commitment.
Jewish participation also included organizing, fundraising, and institutional work. The Library of Congress documents Joel Spingarn’s early NAACP leadership and Kivie Kaplan’s later service.
Spingarn · Library of Congress ↗Kaplan · Library of Congress ↗A shared future requires a different response
Take the warning seriously enough to examine it. Take the threat seriously enough to confront it. Make room for Jews to belong, live openly, and help shape their future.
That commitment belongs alongside Palestinian freedom and everyone’s dignity. Solidarity becomes credible when it protects people even when their fears complicate our preferred story.
Explore a shared future →Sources are linked beside each claim. Historical quotations are excerpts in English translation where applicable; analysis is identified as analysis. Read the evidence and quotation notes ↗
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