Conspiracy theoryWhy the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” Is Still Pushed by Anti-Semites More Than a Century after Hoax First Circulated
Surely no outright forgery in modern history has ever proved itself more durable than the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, concocted by Tsarist police in the early twentieth century. Why is it that this demonstrably false document continues to hold sway today? Perhaps the simplest explanation is human irrationality, which neither education nor enlightenment has ever managed to defeat.
An anti-Semitic hoax more than a century old reared its ugly head again as the Republican National Convention was underway last week.
Mary Ann Mendoza, a member of the advisory board of President Trump’s reelection campaign, was due to speak on 25 August. But she was suddenly pulled from the schedule after she had retweeted a link to a conspiracy theory about Jewish elites plotting to take over the world.
In her now-deleted tweet, Mendoza urged her roughly 40,000 followers to read a lengthy thread that warned of a plan to enslave the “goyim,” or non-Jews. It included fevered denunciations of the historically wealthy Jewish family, the Rothschilds, as well as the top target of right-wing extremism today, the liberal Jewish philanthropist George Soros.
The thread also made reference to one of the most notorious hoaxes in modern history: “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” As a scholar of American Jewish history, I know how durable this document has been as a source of the belief in Jewish conspiracies. The fact that it is still making the rounds within the fringe precincts of the political right today is testament to the longevity of this fabrication.
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Surely no outright forgery in modern history has ever proved itself more durable. In the early 20th century, the Protocols were concocted by Tsarist police known as the Okhrana, drawing upon an obscure 1868 German novel, “Biarritz,” in which mysterious Jewish leaders meet in a Prague cemetery.
This fictional cabal aspires for power over entire nations through currency manipulation and seeks ideological domination by disseminating fake news. In the novel, the Devil listens sympathetically to the reports that representatives of the tribes of Israel present, describing the havoc and subversion that they have wrought, and the destruction that is yet to come.
The Okhrana – “protection” in Russian – worked for what was then the most powerful anti-Semitic regime in Europe and wanted to use the hoax to discredit revolutionary forces hostile to the reactionary policies and religious mysticism of Tsarist rule.
The document became a global phenomenon only about two decades after the Okhrana’s fabrication. Widespread publication and republication coincided with both the influenza pandemic of 1918-20 and the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 – both of which stirred fears of obscure forces that menaced social control.
