If we acknowledge that White nationalism clearly and forcefully names Jews as non-white, and did so in the very fiber of its emergence as a post-civil rights right-wing revolutionary movement, then we are forced to recognize our own ignorance about the country we thought we lived in. It is time to have that conversation.
–Eric Ward
In February of 2022, Whoopi Goldberg found herself suspended from the ABC talk show “The View” after making a remark that exemplified the lack of clear understanding of how antisemitism and white supremacy are inherently linked. Specifically, Goldberg stated that the Holocaust was “not about race”– a claim that revealed not only her but many people’s ignorance of how alongside millions of Jews, the Nazis targeted a wide range of other racialized and minoritized peoples.
Antisemitism can be specifically understood as prejudice, discrimination, and hatred toward Jews that often rhetorically and physically manifests in violence against both Jews (and non-Jews). Throughout history, antisemitism has been instigated differently–from circulating conspiracy theories to passing discriminatory legislation to enacting extreme acts of violence such as enforced imprisonment, torture, and mass genocide. Nazi-antisemitism–the driving ideology behind the Holocaust that took place in Germany, Poland and other locations between 1933 and 1945–was constituted by ideas directly related to race and white supremacy. Race, to be clear, is a socially constructed category with intersectional material consequences, not a fixed biological marker. Jewish identity and experience is often associated with whiteness in the United States; indeed, early on during the formation of the American republic, Jewish people were considered white in a legal sense, as evident in their inclusion as “free white persons” in the Naturalization Act of 1790. However throughout history, Jewish people have been marked as a distinct racial group, and with Nazism came the widespread belief that Jewish people were non-Aryans and thus not members of the pure and superior white race. The persecution of Jewish people during the Holocaust is directly linked to such white supremacist beliefs.
For white nationalists (and more recently the alt-right) in the contemporary United States and abroad, Jews are considered to be not only a distinct race of their own but, in the words of Eric Ward, “the absolute other, the driving force of white dispossession.” It should be acknowledged that white nationalism is constituted by various groups with differentiating nuanced goals, practices, and beliefs. In general, however, white nationalism can be understood as an ideology and a movement grounded in “the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation’s culture and public life.” Many people confuse white supremacy with white nationalism; in fact, the Anti-Defamation League situates white nationalism as a euphemism for white supremacy. Yet whereas white supremacy is grounded in the racist belief that white people are innately superior to people of other races, white nationalism is about maintaining white people’s political, economic, and cultural dominance. In the words of Ilana Kaufman, “for white nationalists, there is this deep, deep commitment to maintaining political, historical and institutional supremacy in the United States and around the world in terms of…global white nationalism.”
Ward, among others, stresses that while white supremacy often undergirds white nationalism, “antisemitism forms its theoretical core.” As Ward explains, White Nationalists believe that Jews have duped everyone into thinking they are white, all the while, working in politics, education, media, and finance to undermine white power. This myth has historical legs, evident in historical German propaganda posters and fictional pamphlets such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion that function to expose and warn readers about the supposed Jewish conspiratorial agenda to dominate global and national affairs. Yet, such myths and documents are still being spread and taught today, and they are being bolstered by values and enactments of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks). This system of domination is undergirded by vehement commitments to upholding economic nationalism; cis-heteronormative gender identities, roles, and relations; and a culture of misogynist masculinity. For instance, as Ben Lorber and Heron Greensmith report, White Nationalists today believe Jews are involved in a coordinated effort that entails not only “engineering increased immigration of Black and brown people, orchestrating racial justice movements, [and] controlling the government and giant corporations,” but also “liberalizing societal attitudes around gender and sexuality in colleges and universities, media, and other cultural institutions.” Due to such supposed coordinated machinations, many White Nationalists blame Jews for the perceived possible, if not looming, extinction of the white race.
This blaming of Jewish people for “White Genocide” helps to explain why at the infamous 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, white nationalist protestors went immediately and vociferously after Jews by displaying swastikas, chanting antisemitic slogans such as “Jews will not replace us,” and carrying banners with antisemitic sentiments such as “Jews are Satan’s children.” This blame also helps to explain the recent attention to “replacement theory” that is just now getting media attention for its rhetorical justifications of recent white supremacist violence. To fully understand what drives white nationalism today, then, one must not ignore the fact that in Ward’s words: for White Nationalists, Jews are the “arch-nemesis of the white race, whose machinations have prevented the natural and inevitable imposition of white supremacy.”
In light of this complicated history and the ongoing harmful impacts stemming from the connections between antisemitism, white nationalism, and white supremacy, the Swastika Counter Project advocates for intensifying public education about these links and their ongoing harmful consequences. Visit our educational resource pages on this website to learn more.
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Simplified Summary
Whoopi Goldberg got in trouble on “The View” in February 2022 for saying something problematic about the Holocaust. She said it wasn’t about race, but that’s not true. Antisemitism is prejudice, discrimination, and hatred toward Jews that often manifests in verbal and physical violence against both Jews (and non-Jews). During the Holocaust, Nazis targeted Jews and other groups because of racist beliefs.
Today, white nationalists see Jewish people as a threat to white power. They think Jews control important parts of society and are working against white people. This idea comes from old lies and conspiracies that are still believed today. White nationalists blame Jews for things they don’t like, like immigration and social change.
You can see this blaming of Jews at events like the 2017 Unite the Right rally, where people shouted hateful things and carried symbols of hate, including Nazi swastikas. The recent talk about “replacement theory” also shows how white nationalists are very concerned with keeping white people in power. To understand white nationalism, it is thus very important to understand how antisemitism is linked to white supremacy.