Stories are as old as we are, which is the story we tell ourselves.

The Bible, at its core, is a collection of stories to keep society humming along smoothly. Some teach us morality so that society doesn’t collapse; others demonize certain members of that society. And when you look down from 10,000 ft., antisemitism – in almost every form – is really just a big, old, stupid story. A B-movie that’s been repeatedly remade, across thousands of years, with the same ‘twist’ – that Jews are secretly running the world for some reason.

This story (fake news, as some call it) has caused Jews to be persecuted a lot.

Millennia ago, when the Roman Empire came to power it cast Jews out as “others” or enslaved them and dispersed them across the globe (or murdered them), which is how Jews came to be in different countries – minorities in all. As a result they developed different cultures and attributes, which is why Jews are as diverse as a college admissions catalog (despite the far-left thinking Jews are just white people, and the far-right thinking Jews are trying to destroy just white people). Jews were also massacred in 12th Century England and 14th Century Spain. Starting in the 19th Century, the word “pogrom” referred to government-sanctioned massacres of Jews in Russia. In the 20th Century, dictators like Hitler (the Holocaust guy) and Stalin used that ‘world control’ story to scapegoat Jews for their own purposes – painting them as evil, shifty, wandering, homeless, and beholden just to each other. This false lack of patriotism was driven as a wedge between countrymen, to keep those in power from being challenged. 

And through this lens, antisemitic dog whistles – and the ideas they promote – exist for the purpose of feeding that story. 

Globalist and Dual loyalty: Beholden to something other than one’s country. The Rothschilds and George Soros: Wealthy, powerful Jews secretly controlling the world. The Great Replacement Theory: Trying to be the dominant class by replacing (eradicating) the majority race. Cultural Marxism: Assisting in that replacement (eradication) by redistributing cultural advantages. Cabal: The secret group trying to establish a New World Order, where Jews are slaveholders and not slaves (which is what they’ve been made to be throughout history). Shifty: Being duplicitous to achieve that global dominance goal. Greedy: To amass more wealth and power in pursuit of that goal. Cosmopolitan: Citizens of the world and not their host country. If antisemites were a band, they'd play one song on repeat until the concert was over.

Throughout history – to survive being ghettoized, disenfranchised, deprived of status, and prevented from doing business with their fellow gentile citizens – Jews created networks with similarly-marginalized Jews in other countries. They worked in industries that were ‘low-class’ at the time, like banking and entertainment. Some became quite successful. And that success, and those networks, were attacked, because how dare a traditionally-marginalized individual acquire such wealth. How dare Larry David be so funny!

At the root of this boring, repetitive story is a fear: That Jews, if they were to become the dominant social class, would treat everyone else how they’ve historically been treated (marginalized, abused, enslaved, murdered). That’s what fuels antisemitism: ‘They would do to us what we did to them.’ Which isn’t so different from the fear that guides bigotry against Black people, LGBTQ people, women, and other marginalized groups.

In America, patriotism is conditioned in us from birth. We say the Pledge of Allegiance before class and the National Anthem before sports. We’re Americans, first and foremost. But, in this country – and in others throughout the world – the easiest way to ‘other’ someone is to question their patriotism. ‘You’re an American, but they’re a globalist.’ It may be tired, sad, old, uncreative…but it’s effective. And when that ‘othering’ is no longer accepted when explicitly written or spoken, you have to hide it in a vessel, something that conceals its true meaning.

Hence, a dog whistle. Which, hopefully, is now a little easier for you to hear.