Hannah Arendt may have been one of the first authors to identify the virulent character of anti-Semitic narratives. In the Origins of Totalitarism, she underscored how anti-Semitism was crystallized in some totalitarian regimes, especially because its virulence was not promptly identified by the public and the so-called enlightened men (the individuals responsible for producing knowledge). Before the announcement of the final solution, Hitler referred to himself as a prophet while describing his plan to bring Germany back to its golden era and he also had a team of researchers who were responsible for legitimising anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, such as that Jews carry disease.
Over history, the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories as truth by authoritative speakers (priests, intellectuals) has been crucial to legitimise this extreme ideology and this movement has been modernized with the advent of digital media. If in the past, the authoritative place occupied by some speakers was consecrated through means of mass communication, now the shift from ordinary speaker to authoritative speaker became even easier with social network sites that enable anyone to set up an account to present messages as truth and reach a considerable number of followers/viewers. It is worth mentioning that, in our society, this considerable number of followers/viewers represents power (individuals with a great number of followers have undoubtedly more power in shaping people's opinions).
As a result, currently, we don't have dozens of individuals legitimising anti-Semitism through the production of conspiracy theories as truth. We have a countless number of individuals engaged in such activity, enhancing even more the virulence of an ideology that thrives during crises, especially crises that drive individuals into a permanent state of fear. A search on Twitter for the words “Jewish” and “coronavirus” from March 20th to April 3rd 2020 revealed the existence of ten different types of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have been associating the COVID19 with the Jewish community.
