Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
From Pamphleteers to Podcasts: How Evolving Media Environments Can Fuel Antisemitism and Authoritarianism, and What to Do About It
Each advance in media technology can serve both constructive and destructive purposes. When the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, it helped disseminate the anti-Jewish blood libel and sear the image of a "dangerous" Jew in European Christian imagination. Later, modern newsprint and radio were quickly adopted by antisemites and white supremacists. Today, in the midst of another media revolution, extremism spreads rapidly online through social media and podcasts. This event will ask what role antisemitism and conspiracy theories have historically played in challenging democracies and undergirding authoritarianism. How does the structure of online platforms amplify extremists and create financial incentives for hate? And what should we do about it?
David Brody, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Jewish Americans and a legal expert on extremism and online civil rights, engaged these questions with Magda Teter, the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University, whose work on the blood-libel in early-modern Europe shows surprising resonances with more recent revolutions in communications technology.
Made possible in part by support from the Erna & Heinz Mayer Fund at the LBI
From Pamphleteers to Podcasts: How Evolving Media Environments Can Fuel Antisemitism and Authoritarianism, and What to Do About It
Each advance in media technology can serve both constructive and destructive purposes. When the printing press was invented in the fifteenth century, it helped disseminate the anti-Jewish blood libel and sear the image of a "dangerous" Jew in European Christian imagination. Later, modern newsprint and radio were quickly adopted by antisemites and white supremacists. Today, in the midst of another media revolution, extremism spreads rapidly online through social media and podcasts. This event will ask what role antisemitism and conspiracy theories have historically played in challenging democracies and undergirding authoritarianism. How does the structure of online platforms amplify extremists and create financial incentives for hate? And what should we do about it?
David Brody, the Executive Director of the Alliance of Jewish Americans and a legal expert on extremism and online civil rights, engaged these questions with Magda Teter, the Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University, whose work on the blood-libel in early-modern Europe shows surprising resonances with more recent revolutions in communications technology.
Made possible in part by support from the Erna & Heinz Mayer Fund at the LBI
