This film traces antisemitism as a living discursive system — one that doesn't just persist across history but mutates with every new communication technology. It shows how language doesn't merely reflect hatred; it constructs it.
The core argument moves from historical framing through the mechanics of contemporary digital antisemitism — implicitness, coded language, plausible deniability — to the structural conditions that accelerate its normalization online. The emphasis is on the hidden register: the vast, implicit underbelly that explicit-only approaches miss entirely.
The film closes on opportunity: for the first time, social media studies make it possible to study Jew-hatred — like any other hate ideology — in real time and at scale. Social media isn't just the problem; it's the evidence base. The tools exist. The question is whether we'll use the interdisciplinary methods that combine humanities, social sciences, and technology to understand these phenomena in fundamentally new ways — and, not least, to sharpen our ability to counter bigotry and exclusion across research, education, politics, law, and security.
Funded by the Hertie Foundation (Gemeinnützige Hertie-Stiftung), Germany.
The clip is also on YouTube, with subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic:
