Accusing Jews of Controlling the Media, Economy, Government

The assertion that Jews "control" the media, economy, government, and many institutions is an antisemitic conspiracy myth that blames Jewish for economic turmoil and institutional corruption.

For instance, there have been countless conspiracy myths about the Rothschild family’s control of the economy and politics, even ones alleging that the family was responsible for the Civil War and plotted to assassinate U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

As such, it is important to note that a core element of antisemitism is not merely the belief that all Jews are evil, but also that all evil can be attributed to Jews. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many conspiracy myths accused individuals such as Bill Gates, Dr. Antony Fauci, and Angela Merkel of wrongdoing while also claiming that they were secretly Jewish.

Some well-intentioned individuals may seek to undermine such claims by arguing that Jews don’t make up a significant portion of the people involved in the media or the lobbyists influencing politicians, or by correctly identifying that many of the Jewish people that are said to be controlling a particular societal institution aren’t in fact Jewish. In reality, the number of Jews involved in a particular field has no relation to “Jewish power” or “Jewish control” of that industry. Furthermore, Jews who tend to work in these fields do so as individuals, not as representatives of the Jewish people or with conspiratorial matters in mind.  

Dr. Lipstadt recounts that a student once asked whether the Nazi German claim that Jews were using ill-gotten skills to control world economies had any merit given that “all German bankers were Jewish.” While Lipstadt began to refute the claim with statistics, she credited her teaching assistant with responding properly: “They actually weren’t, but what if they had been? Would that have been a legitimate reason to hate all Jews or to infer from this that Jews, as a people, aimed to control the world’s economies?”  

“By citing facts and figures,” writes Dr. Lipstadt, “I had responded to an irrational question in a rational fashion, thereby giving the claim in her question the gravitas it did not deserve. The answer from my colleague exposed its fundamental irrationality.”