On October 8th, 2023, while the world was still processing the images of the single deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust, I watched an explosion of a different kind. It wasn’t the sound of rockets, but the roar of a latent hatred finally finding its excuse to go mainstream.
For many, the antisemitic vitriol that flooded social media before Israel had even launched a counter-offensive was a shock. For me, it was just the volume being turned way up.
I see myself as an “incognito Jew”. I don’t fit the visual stereotype so I get to move through secular circles unmarked as a result I’ve spent my life as a fly on the wall of antisemitism. I’ve heard the casual slurs and the absurd conspiracy theories people share when they think there isn’t a Jew in the room. I knew the pilot light of antisemitism was always on; October 7th just turned the dial until the furnace roared.
I wasn’t surprised by the hate. What did surprise me, however, was the sudden, bizarre pivot to “theological scholarship.”
Almost overnight, influencers who likely couldn’t find Israel on a map and certainly couldn’t tell a Torah (Old Testament) from a telephone book began quoting the Talmud.
To give you an idea of how absurd this trend is: in order to even understand what these people were talking about, I actually had to go out and research what the Talmud was. Of course, as a Jew, I had heard the word in passing throughout my life. But like 99% of Jews, I had never cracked it open, let alone known how many thousands of pages were in it. I had to actively study the history and structure of the text just to be able to write this article and figure out if I could debunk the claims being thrown around. That is the level of obscurity we are dealing with. A text so far removed from the daily lives of modern Jews that we have to Google it to understand the accusations being hurled at us.
The best way I can describe the Talmud after my research is this: imagine a subreddit populated by a very small, highly specific group of people from 1,500 years ago. Now imagine those users spent centuries debating wild, legalistic hypotheticals—scenarios that were barely relevant then and are completely alien now. In this “subreddit,” one user might post a “batshit” opinion, only for ten other users to jump in and “dunk” on him for the next three pages. It is a record of arguments, not a book of rules. Yet, modern antisemites are taking these ancient “comment threads,” picking out the most downvoted or eccentric “posts,” and presenting them as the official policy of all Jewish people in 2026.
We’ve entered a “hype cycle” of misinformation where the Talmud is being used as a weapon to justify hatred of Israel, Zionism and Jews in general. It is a classic bait-and-switch: they claim they are only “critiquing a political movement,” yet they reach back a millennium and a half into obscure religious texts to find reasons to loathe the people behind that movement.
Figures like Candace Owens, Dan Bilzerian, and Jake Shields and the prominent podcasts that host them, from Tucker Carlson to Shawn Ryan, present these texts as if they are the secret, daily marching orders for every Jew on the planet.
The beauty of this tactic is the Talmud’s sheer density. It is so vast that a “do-your-own-researcher” can cherry-pick a single sentence, strip it of context (often ignoring that the very next sentence debunks it), or simply fabricate a quote entirely. They know their audience will never check the “thread.”
For the layman following the chaos of the world through alternative media, there is a simple litmus test. We live in an era where we get our information from outside the mainstream, which can be valuable, but it also leaves us vulnerable to sophisticated grifts. If you are watching a creator and they suddenly start citing the Talmud to explain world events or Jewish behavior, let that be your “dead giveaway.”
I am not saying people, religions or countries are above criticism, but when someone reaches for the Talmud, they have gone out of their way to find a reason to justify hatred. They are digging through an ancient, obscure attic to find a weapon to bring to a modern fight. It is a clear sign that they are not acting in good faith. They aren’t trying to inform you; they are trying to recruit you into a very old, very ugly cycle.
