|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
This analysis was authored by Ronit Hizgiaev, a Syracuse University student and intern for the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM.
Antisemitic conspiracy theories — particularly the long-standing trope of Jewish “greed” — are surging in the digital age, amplified by social media discourse and artificial intelligence (AI).
What once circulated at the margins now appears openly, repackaged as humor, irony, or experimentation. Online platforms have become an efficient distribution channel for classical antisemitic libels, stripped of social restraint and reintroduced as entertainment.
AI has accelerated this process, making antisemitic libels easier to generate, faster to circulate, and harder to challenge. Centuries-old caricatures are now rendered visually, replicated, and pushed into mainstream feeds, often without moderation, context, or consequence. The result is the same ancient hatred — now mass-produced.
What the Investigation Revealed
On November 21, CAM’s Antisemitic Research Center (ARC) examined Instagram Reels generated through artificial intelligence tools. Using only the search terms ‘Jew’ and ‘AI,’ five AI-generated videos containing explicit antisemitic imagery surfaced within five minutes.
Across all five videos, the same message appeared repeatedly: Jews portrayed as obsessively greedy, driven by money, and stripped of individuality or humanity.
In the five AI-generated videos identified by researchers, Jews were repeatedly depicted scrambling for coins, chasing falling money, or hoarding loose change.
One reel shows a Hasidic man sprinting to catch a tossed coin midair. Another depicts a coin thrown toward a group of Jewish men, with AI-generated figures multiplying as they rush toward it. A separate video portrays a Jewish man rapidly scooping pennies into a cup, framed as evidence of frugality taken to excess. Another shows Jewish men staring intently at a claw machine filled with gold coins, visibly disappointed when it fails.
Across the reels, Jews are reduced to a single caricature: money-obsessed, grasping, and dehumanized.
View this post on Instagram
How the Stereotype Is Being Repackaged
The visuals varied, but the caricature remained constant. Jewish men — often shown in Hasidic dress — are portrayed as frantic and grasping whenever money appears.
Another featured an AI-generated trailer for a fake film, complete with grotesque physical exaggerations and a soundtrack frequently used in antisemitic online content. The protagonist raced through tunnels and streets collecting coins, reinforcing the image of Jews as hoarders driven by greed.
View this post on Instagram
An Ancient Lie With Deadly Consequences
The myth of Jewish greed originated in medieval Europe, where Jews — barred from land ownership and most professions — were forced into commerce and moneylending. Christian societies then relied on Jewish lenders while simultaneously vilifying them for charging interest, turning structural exclusion into a moral indictment that endured for centuries.
As European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor recently said at the CAM-organized 2025 European Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in Paris, France, “Artificial intelligence and deepfakes are turning the tools of the digital age into instruments of hate and discrimination.”
After October 7: The Collapse of Restraint
Long before October 7, antisemitic tropes had already been laundered through the language of anti-Israel activism. Traditional anti-Jewish tropes did not disappear; they were repackaged, redirected, and aimed at the collective Jew embodied in the Jewish state. Israel became the vehicle through which centuries-old hatreds could be expressed with social and political cover.
The Hamas massacre sharply intensified an existing dynamic. After October 7, the remaining restraints collapsed. Antisemitic ideas that had circulated under coded or politicized language were expressed more openly, more aggressively, and with little pushback.
In this environment, antisemitic tropes are no longer treated as socially unacceptable. They are reframed as moral clarity or legitimate political critique. Repetition has stripped these tropes of shock value. What once provoked outrage now drives clicks, shares, and algorithmic promotion.
AI also provides cover: the image did it, the algorithm did it — not the user.
Platform Negligence and Real-World Harm
Despite years of warnings, platforms such as Instagram continue to host and algorithmically amplify antisemitic content. Explicit caricatures rooted in classical antisemitism circulate with little resistance, even after being reported.
Online normalization feeds offline targeting, harassment, and violence. When ancient myths are treated as entertainment, the consequences show up offline.
A Technology Problem — and a Moral One
Artificial intelligence has given new speed and cover to one of history’s most dangerous lies. When antisemitic caricatures are automated, gamified, and distributed, the result is not ignorance — it is normalization. Platforms that algorithmically promote these images are not neutral intermediaries; they are active distributors of antisemitic mythologies that once justified persecution and violence. Scaling hatred is not innovation — it is a failure of responsibility, and the damage is happening now.
View this post on Instagram
