An Old Obsession, New Platforms: How Social Media Amplifies and Mainstreams Antisemitism
Streaming Live in the Mercaz
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Accusations that Jews poison wells, kill children, or conspire against humanity are very old. What is new is the infrastructure. This talk asks why a durable obsession keeps finding fresh hosts, and what changes when it travels through Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram rather than pulpits and pamphlets. Drawing on the systematic analysis of thousands of anti-Israel campus accounts and their output since October 7, Prof. Jikeli shows how a movement can absorb Hamas framing while presenting itself as a human rights cause. He examines the structural resemblance between medieval blood libel and today's sweeping accusations against Israel-where that comparison holds, and where it breaks down. The talk closes on the harder questions: what separates political criticism from the collective attribution of guilt to Jews, what mainstreaming costs Jewish students, and what institutions can actually do.

The Academic Lecture Series brings together scholars and faculty from Western Galilee College (Israel), Budapest Jewish University (Hungary), and U.S.-based colleges and universities within our Partnership communities for a series of online interdisciplinary lectures open to students and all community members.

Each session includes a lecture followed by a live Q&A.