Category: Antisemitism

As stated in my previous entry, this book was an entirely falsified text claiming to have been written by the “Elders of Zion” or leaders of a secret underground alliance of the Jewish population. This reading was first published in 1903 in a Russian newspaper titled Znamia (translation: banner). The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was originally written in Russian, and a few years later, it was translated into English, French, and German.

The popularity of this work suddenly rose in about 1917, at the same time, the Bolshevik Party overthrew the current Russian rulers. Due to this sudden Communist takeover in Russia, many people believed there was something more “sinister” behind Communism and started to spread the false rhetoric that the Jewish people were responsible for Communism as a whole. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion only furthered this belief as it specifically laid out how the Jewish people would take over different countries and treat those who don’t follow Judaism.

The edition that I read was Henry Ford’s early 1920s edition, which was translated into English. Henry Ford was inspired by this text to write The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, which later served as inspiration for none other than Hitler himself. This work was found to be false in 1920 when a British journalist named Lucien Wolf published a book exposing the Protocols to be falsified information that was heavily copied from a French political satire, Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.

As of present research, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion still retains significance in Russia, and a newer edition of the book even tried to blame Jewish people for COVID-19. Some versions completely deny that the Holocaust even happened (despite so much extreme evidence that it very much did). Overall, the antisemitic rhetoric that was created with this text is still very much prevalent today in many different cultures across the world and is used as an excuse to punish and oppress the Jewish people even currently.

Sources: Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Encyclopedia Britannica and Holocaust Encyclopedia.

As the title of this blog entry suggests, this piece of text utilizes fearmongering to an extent I’ve only usually seen in rightwing propaganda on Fox News or Facebook. In an age already full of tensions, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion serves to further the narrative that Jewish people are up to no good.

Firstly, this book is an entirely falsified document someone wrote up to try and convince the greater population that Jewish people were secretly working to overthrow the entire world. The ideas of total control and manipulation are utilized in a disgusting way to try and say that the Jewish people have been controlling everything from the media to governments across the entire world. The idea that the Jewish people will profit by keeping the world at war and unaware of their true intentions serves to further the idea of fear that everyone should have in regards to this situation that has been entirely falsified as a means of excusing antisemitism.

Looking further into this text, terrifying parallels are formed between what this book claims Jewish folks are trying to do and what the Nazi party actually did. The idea that they control the press and what ideas can be put into circulation is exactly what Hitler did when establishing his regime. The idea of total control over a population and the complete exile of a group is also mirrored, with the Jewish supposedly taking advantage of the Gentiles (Christians), when in reality, the opposite soon proved to be true. The constant repetition of threats that increase in severity also further serves to build that fear and distrust against the Jewish population.

This book and its effects on the world prove how dangerous propaganda can be. With the idea spreading that this was, in fact, a real document leaked from the Jewish leaders regarding taking over the world and taking control over others, it only further served to increase the rising hatred against Jewish people. Fearmongering is very real and can be seen today with the rising conflicts in politics, especially from the right and their hatred of all things progressive. In this case, the fear and growing distrust that was only furthered by literature such as this led to a genocide of millions of Jewish people and those who were deemed “other” than the mass population in Germany. Misinformation spreads hatred, and hatred leads to distrust and eventually, like this case, all-out wars against a people and a whole religion.