Simply referred to as the “dual loyalty” charge, antisemites alleges that the true allegiance of Jews is to their fellow Jews and that therefore Jewish people are inherently disloyal citizens and cannot be trusted. In casting the Jew as the other, this antisemitic trope, which has existed for thousands of years, has been used to scapegoat, harass, and vilify Jews, and at times has even led to murder.

According to historian Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, “The dual loyalty canard that has plagued Jews is the fertile soil in which centuries of these stereotypes have taken root and grown.”

“People were willing to believe it, even though the evidence from the very outset was shaky, because it made sense to them. They had been so exposed to this stereotype, it had become so much the pivot point and the central element of antisemitism that Jews have other loyalties, that it seemed like it must be true, and they were ready to believe the worst,” Lipstadt asserted.

This canard is different from the concern over a conflict of interest, which occurs when individual relationships or considerations may influence decisions or actions but is not dependent on an individual’s identity. Rather, the dual loyalty charge levied against Jews is inherently designed to target and discredit them and to call into question their loyalty to their country of residence simply because they are Jewish—to portray them as a dangerous fifth column.

While denouncing the antisemitic canard of dual loyalty is essential, it does not mean that the emotional connections of Diaspora Jews to Israel or their fellow Jews must be denied. Indeed, polls consistently demonstrate a strong appreciation for Israel among Diaspora Jews, whether in America or elsewhere. People can be loyal citizens and still feel strong connections to other countries, whether for religious, ancestral, or cultural reasons.

There are many wide-ranging reasons for the strong connection felt by Diaspora Jews to Israel, including, but not limited to: ideology, religion, family ties, an appreciation for Jewish history, and a shared understanding of the Jewish people’s struggles over the ages. This is no different than the affinity Korean Americans may feel to Korea or the connection that members of other ethnicities may feel to their respective places of origin and cultures.

Loyalty to a home country may be based on its core values and principles, such as liberty and freedom. Maintaining multiple loyalties is only objectionable if doing so is antithetical to those essential values or if one is loyal to a country at war with their home country.

However, to single out Diaspora Jews and argue that they cannot be trusted citizens because of this relationship is antisemitic and a perpetuation of the antisemitic canard that has led to much Jewish suffering.

This trope has reappeared in anti-Jewish measures throughout history, especially in Christian Europe, and has often manifested in the scapegoating of Jews for problems unrelated to them.

One of the most infamous cases of the disloyalty charge is the Dreyfus Affair in the late 19th century, when French army captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly selling secret military document to the Germans.  Shortly following his arrest, an antisemitic newspaper broke the story and praised his incarceration, calling Dreyfus a traitor and noting his Jewish heritage.  To prove Dreyfus' guilt, French Minister of War General Mercier hired a criminologist who determined that although the handwriting on the leaked memo did not match his handwriting, Dreyfus had intentionally changed his handwriting to ensure that if the documents were discovered, he would not be found guilty.

While Dreyfus’ sentence was eventually overturned, the impact of the Dreyfus Affair was felt throughout France and all of Europe. It forced the French people to grapple with the level of antisemitism they would accept in their society.  Eventually, they rejected baseless hatred by reinstating Dreyfus, whose story remains a cautionary tale concerning the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories in modern democratic societies.  

There have also been examples of the dual loyalty charge and scapegoating throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Infamously, Hitler blamed German Jewish soldiers for Germany’s defeat in World War I and began to paint German Jews as a dangerous fifth column. Shortly before and following the creation of Israel, Arab Jews were accused of prioritizing a “Zionist agenda” above the interests of their fellow citizens. This culminated in massacres of Jews in Egypt and Libya, where hundreds of Jews were murdered by anti-Jewish rioters in 1945. After the founding of the State of Israel, thousands of Jews were arrested in Egypt. This pattern continued after Israel was victorious in the Six-Day War; Egyptian authorities rounded up Jewish men and arrested them as “Israeli” prisoners of war.

In 1953, Joseph Stalin arrested nine doctors, six of whom were Jewish, for conspiring to assassinate the country’s political leadership, in what would become known as the “Doctors’ Plot.” Fortunately for the defendants, on 5 March 1953—shortly before the start of the trials—Stalin passed away.  Following the publication of the news by the USSR-based newspapers Pravda and Izvestiya, antisemitic rhetoric across the Soviet Union intensified, with articles accusing Jewish citizens of being responsible for a string of robberies and other crimes. At first, the newspapers did not explicitly note the suspects’ Jewish heritage, instead choosing to use euphemisms such as “rootless cosmopolitans,” “bourgeois,” and “Zionist agents.”

Jennifer Patai and Raphael Patai, authors of The Myth of the Jewish Race, and other historians have theorized that Stalin’s goal was “clearly aimed at the total liquidation of Jewish cultural life.”