Jewish fascism is a very real, and very disturbing political movement

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Jewish fascism. It's a term that seems cruelly oxymoronic, a mockery of the memories of millions of people who were slaughtered by Adolf Hitler. And yet, Jewish fascism is real thing, an incredibly strange and hateful movement that's growing in both Israel and the United States.

But what does Jewish fascism look like, and why is it a thing? In this episode, I’m joined by Ben Lorber, a senior research analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive organization that studies right wing extremism. Our discussion is centered around his recent article for Religion Dispatches entitled “Meet the ‘Bronze Age Zionists,’ far-right Jews embracing fascism in the wake of October 7.”

The video of our March 6, 2024 conversation is available. The full transcript of the episode is available to Flux subscribers on Substack or Patreon.

Cover photo: A meme illustration circulated among far-right Jewish online activists showing an extremely muscular Jewish man being admired by a group of women in what appears to be ancient Rome.

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Audio Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

09:07 — Why some far-right Jews see themselves as similar to neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates

11:48 — Partial reconciliation between some white nationalists and Jewish fascists

17:54 — Why many political uses of the term “Judeo-Christian” represent fake pluralism

21:50 — “Bronze Age Pervert” and Jewish fascists’ struggles against antisemitic white nationalists

28:53 — Ben Shapiro’s antisemitism and the insidious concept of “bad Jews”

37:12 — Antisemitism is integral to right-wing politics, no matter what pro-Trump advocates may claim

43:48 — Building solidarity: The only effective way to combat antisemitism

Audio Transcript

The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.

MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: Welcome to Theory of Change, Ben.

BEN LORBER: Thanks, Matthew. It's good to be here.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. So I did want to mention to the audience that you have recently written an article over at Religion Dispatches about the phenomenon of Jewish [00:02:00] fascism. So if anybody wants to dig in even further than what we're going to do in this episode, I definitely recommend people check that out.

I guess this is a very strange topic to a lot of people, as I said in the introduction. So let's maybe first get started on who are these people and what are they doing?

LORBER: Yeah. Well, I think when you have a term like Jewish fascism, could be talking about a, wide range of phenomena, as I'm sure we all know, No there is a really horrific, war, an assault being committed by the far right Israeli government on Gaza right now.

And that's certainly, one locus of it, right? The, extreme right in Israel, largely though, not exc exclusively a religious Zionist, movement has been growing for decades and has been allying itself. With, all kinds of, European ethno nationalist leaders.

And then you also [00:03:00] have minority of the American Jewish community and the, the, global diaspora Jewish community. That's also outlying itself with the far right, around issues, ranging from immigration to black lives matter to, to support for, Israel, to To, the separation of church and state, right?

The, the global Jewish far right, really is very, similar to other far right movements.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that's right. And and in regards specifically to the idea of the fascists that we're talking about here, a lot of them are directly connected to the Israeli far right. And they are, doing a lot of memes and things like that in reference to, killing Palestinians and that sort of thing. And it's one of the things that you talked about in the article is that, these Jewish fascists are trying to make connections to other. Right wing extremist group.

So including [00:04:00] people who are explicitly antisemitic, including people who are jihadists or Christian supremacists.

LORBER: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, online, something that myself and other researchers have seen since October 7th that I wrote about in my Religion Dispatches article is really a growth in these alt rights meme accounts that are Jewish.

They're run by Jews. Obviously it's possible that, they're anonymous, so they could be lying that they're Jewish, but it's pretty clear that they have a deep familiarity in Jewish religious iconography, in Israeli history, and Jewish identity.

Like much of the global far right, they're championing themes of, hyper masculinity. They're championing, vitriolic, racism both toward Palestinians and toward, like, Arabs and Muslims more broadly.Like much h of the far right, they're virulently opposed to the ceasefire demonstrations that have been very present across the U S and [00:05:00] many Western countries have in recent months.

They see these ceasefire demonstrations, through racist terms, right? They see predominantly Arab and Muslim and Palestinian led demonstrations as a sign of what they called the Great Replacement, right? What they view as like the dangerous, brown hordes who they see as threatening the stability of white Western Christian civilization, or as they'll call it, Judeo Christian civilization, and they're, and so there are these meme accounts who are championing this, but this is also the kind of of rhetoric that you hear from Israeli far right leaders and that we've been hearing for a long time, right? Folks like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett or Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli far-right leaders, they always depict Israel as the kind of frontline defender of Judeo-Christian civilization or the West against the Islamic East. And that kind of clash of civilizations.

And you hear this from [00:06:00] former president Trump. You also hear this in many forms from political leaders across the aisle in the U.S.

So we're really at at a dangerous moment where the Israeli right is really a core part of the global ethnonationalist far right, in some ways, leading the way.

And this is a very dangerous moment for progressive Jews like myself who really have a very different vision of Jewish identity and Jewish safety and all those things.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah that's right. And as you noted, there is a broad cross section of many of these individuals seem to be people with extreme fundamentalist opinions. And they are correct to be able to cite, specific verses in specific books of the Bible to support their ideas, but we do have to make clear that the Jewish tradition and Judaism itself has many conflicting pieces in the Bible has, I mean, has, we don't even know how many [00:07:00] authors the Bible has technically.

But nonetheless, it is the case that many more traditionalist Jewish theologians, are, they're into this idea of authoritarianism. They're into the idea that truth comes from God and they control what God says.

That's a very convenient narrative. And, it's one that. It runs consistently in a lot of religions as well. And it's one of the threads that you do see quite a bit in these individuals that you're talking to.

LORBER: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think one thing that's, very much in common with either the Christian nationalist far right, the Jewish nationalist far right, also the Muslim nationalist far right, as they claim, and, not to mention like Hindu nationalists in India, right, really all religious ethnonationalism, they claim to hearken it back to some kind of primordial in truth that they find in their religious scriptures, right?

They claim that they're the inheritors of an [00:08:00] unbroken tradition stretching back into the very foundations of their religion. But I think that's really misleading, right? These are very modern, movements, right? They were built, the Christian right in the U. S. was built, by ideologues in the seventies and the eighties.

The Jewish nationalists, right? In Israel, I'd really strengthened and got kicked off, post 1967, post the Six Day War. We see similar things with the global Muslim far right. These are obviously all very complicated phenomena, but you know, they're modern phenomena and these people don't have a monopoly on what religious texts mean.

They don't have a monopoly on religious truth. I mean, are inspiring. Yeah, in movements within Judaism and Christianity and Islam that's all very different conclusions from our text. And I think it's always a danger that that nationalists and fundamentalists will, cherry pick in various religious traditions to kind of, bolster their political goals.

And it's really [00:09:00] important to remember that there's a great diversity of religious opinions and traditions out there.

Jewish fascists seeking common cause with neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates

SHEFFIELD: So we've got on the screen your Religion Dispatches article. And so, for people who are listening, you've got some of the memes that are, that they are using. And one of them is a meme of a muscular looking Jewish man who looks like a bodybuilder in front of some women who seem to be admiring him quite a bit and they are apparently Romans based on the architecture behind them.

And, it's, this idea of trying to integrate within the other nationalism said that we're talking about, as you were saying, and one of them as people can, let me just scroll down a little bit further here that you know, one of the, the means here I'll describe the first one, and then you can describe the second one.

So we've got a Confederate soldier depicted on the left side in front of a, confederate battle flag. And then we have a somebody who appears to be some sort of Israeli [00:10:00] soldier with a Israel flag in the background behind him. Now, what's, the image below that? The meme that we're, that's depicted there?

LORBER: Yeah. the image below is in many ways, even, more shocking. It shows. A Jewish man with, and you can't really, see it so well with the way that it's cut off, but he has like a, a Nazi yellow star on him, really in an embrace with a white power activist and he has a pin on his chest that says white pride worldwide.

And so the, the, idea was, is it really counter-intuitive, right? Because white nationalists are deeply antisemitic. They have antisemitic conspiracy theories at the core of their ideology, right? Their, central belief is that a Jewish cabal has taken control of immigration, of government, of media in order to wage war against white people.

So, but in the eyes of the Jewish far right, [00:11:00] this is an alliance they would like to see. They'd like to position the Jewish community within the broader far right, they see common enemies, right. They see, look, the state of Israel is under attack in their view, from brown people, essentially. And white people in the U. S. are under attack in their view from brown people. So let's get together and let's build a new traditionalist nationalist kind of vanguard alliance to save the West.

And that is a really a mockery of thousands of years of Jewish history, where it very much has been a European Christian civilization that oppressed Jews for thousands of years.

So to see it reversed now in this kind of, very, visible way is quite disturbing.

Partial reconciliation between some white nationalists and far-right Jews

SHEFFIELD: Yeah, it is. And, it should be noted that, that these outreach efforts while they are rejected by many traditional white nationalist Christian supremacist types, some of them have been reciprocating [00:12:00] and one of them in particular is a guy named Jared Taylor who has been running a magazine and website for many decades called American Renaissance.

And he is very friendly explicitly to to Jews who want to come in and be a member of his organization. And he's had many Jewish people speak at his conferences over the years. And then it's also the case that Richard Spencer, the infamous white nationalist activist had also said for a number of years.

And, he's perhaps changed his public stated views recently, but for the longest time, he said that Israel was a model for what he was trying to do. States. So, I mean, how's, how serious do you think the white nationalist community, if you will, is responding to these overtures by Jewish far right?

LORBER: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of different factors at play. When we say the white nationalist in a community, that might mean very many [00:13:00] different things, right? There are neo-Nazis on the Internet who never want to ally with any Jewish people. They see Jews as the prime enemy.

And many of the neo-Nazis or other white supremacist groups like the America First Corporate Movement, they're actually very, anti anti Israel anti Zionist, but not out of any progressive politics or any real sympathy with Palestinians. It's really like a feature of their antisemitism.

But for others, right, like you mentioned, like Jared Taylor and the MAGA movement more broadly, if you want to consider the, MAGA movement kind of part of white nationalism, they're very welcoming to Jews, right? I mean, the MAGA movement has always tried to recruit different minorities into its coalition, right?

At its core, the base is white, evangelicals, and it very much You know, trades on white grievance and on Christian nationalism, but they've also been very adept at outreach, to African American [00:14:00] communities or to Latinx communities or to Jewish communities. And of course, many Jews in America are also white, but there are also, many Jews of color.

And Jews who are part of these other groups as well. But the global far right is, has always, had multiracial components and, multi-religious components. So I think it's important, to see these overtures, between Jewish nationalists and other, varieties of nationalists as part of this, kind of, diverse global nationalist coalition that that has room for Hindu nationalists.

It has, room for some conservative Muslims. It has room for folks like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro, right? It's a diverse, movement. And I think more attention has to be paid to the subtle and clever ways that, the MAGA movement tries to make room for for religious and racial minorities.

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, it is very important. But it's also worth noting that the way that they make this room, it is for people who know their [00:15:00] place that, you know, so for, so Israel is the place where Jews need to be, and India is the place where Hindus need to be, but within those confines of those states, they should have untrammeled power and have not have to have any regard for human rights or, minority rights of any kind. And and then of course you see that with as well with, far right, black politicians and activists like Candace Owens or many of these up and coming podcasters out there as well that are, black far right individuals. And of course, it's worth noting that that Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys is a Black Hispanic man. He uses that as a way to sort of shield his organization from accusations of racism.

LORBER: Yeah, no, that's definitely true. And there's another movement that's worth mentioning here that The National Conservatives, National Conservative [00:16:00] Movement.

They hold conferences every year. Yeah, National Conservatism, they're, primarily based in the U. S., but they've also held conferences all across the West. And, they, are hard-line Christian nationalists, right? They think the U. S. should become a Christian, nation with a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity, right?

Encoded in our laws and our policies and the identity of this country. But ironically enough national conservatism was started by an Israeli Jewish philosopher named, Yoram Hazony. And there are many there are many traditionalist, Jews in that coalition. And I've talked to some of them, like I went to the national conservatism conference in 2022 in Florida.

And I talked to many right wing Jews at that conference who said openly, we want to live in a Christian nation. We don't see it as a threat to us. If the dominant character of the United States is no longer, pluralistic [00:17:00] and there's no longer a separation of church and state. But if if fundamentalist Christianity is enshrined as the law and the culture of the land.

And some even said to me, I'd rather my kids be educated in a Christian private school than in a secular public school, because at least in the Christian private school, they won't be exposed, to liberalism or to transgender rights or to racial justice movements. So, and that was really shocking to me as someone, I mean, Christians have been trying to convert Jews and, trying to convert everyone else for a really long time.

So it's would you really want your. own child to go to a Christian private school for eight hours every day. And these, people were like, yes, because, to them, the greater enemy is the left. I thought that was a really disturbing, but fascinating look into their view.

Why many political uses of the term "Judeo-Christian" represent fake pluralism

SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And one person who I think who really kind of. popularized that opinion among American Jews is [00:18:00] Dennis Prager, who is a radio host with a Christian supremacist company named Salem Media. And his interpretations of, Judaism are I mean, he actually has said explicitly that, The role of Judaism now in the 21st century is to convert people to Christianity because we have to preserve the Abrahamic values on DSO.

Since Judaism is not evangelical, well, then, I guess. Making people be Christians and helping Christians sign people up. That's what Jews should do. And like, like, and I, think to some degree, people who are, let's say more devoutly and more traditionally Jewish, they might have a general affinity for somebody like Dennis Prager, but not understand what he's actually trying to do to Judaism, which is destroy it.

LORBER: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating because people talk a [00:19:00] lot on the right about a Judeo Christian West, right. As if there's this unbroken continuity. In the Bible, the Old Testament and the New Testament, together really formed, the bedrock of whatever, like, we're calling Western civilization.

And that's, kind of an unbroken, 2000 year old, tradition, but really, like I was saying before the whole idea of a Judeo Christian West is. There's also a very recent, very modern invention. It was initially formed right after World War II, after the Holocaust, as a way to kind of make atonement for what, Europe as a whole, and Germany in particular, had just done to the Jews.

And to say, Hey, now the main enemy is communism, right? So we are the Judeo Christian West, and our enemy is communism in the East. And then once the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the enemy became Islamic fundamentalism, [00:20:00] right? So "Judeo-Christian" has always really functioned more to signify who we aren't rather than who we are.

And yeah, I mean, I think it's very disturbing especially given that Christian nationalists, ultimately even though, Orthodox and right wing Jews are, in their coalition. The laws they want to make the laws of the land are disastrous for religious Jews as well. Religious Jewish law is not so anti abortion as, Christian nationalism is, right?