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Are the goblins in ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ antisemitic? The Harry Potter video game renews criticism.
(JTA) — When people enter the world of “Hogwarts Legacy,” the blockbuster video game that was officially released on Friday, they will find themselves immersed in the fictional universe of “Harry Potter” — and face-to-face with an alleged antisemitic caricature.
The narrative of the game centers on a goblin rebellion in the 1890s, about a century before the fantasy books take place. Some who have had an early look at the game have echoed longstanding concerns that the creatures’ prominent hook noses, and their role in the “Harry Potter” universe running the wizard bank, Gringotts, teeter on the edge of an antisemitic stereotype that Jews control the world’s banks.
Others have taken issue with “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling’s views on transgender people, which LGBTQ rights groups have called transphobic.
The criticism does not appear to have significantly impeded sales of “Hogwarts Legacy,” which has become the best-selling game on Steam, the world’s most popular vendor for computer games. On Twitch, the popular video-game streaming platform, the game reached 1.2 million concurrent viewers at its peak, the most views ever achieved for a single-player game.
While there have been Harry Potter games in the past, this is the first major studio video game from Avalanche Software, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games. It provides an immersive experience, creating hype among fans who are hungry for a wizard simulator that makes the player feel like they live in that world. And it’s also received positive reviews, sitting at 84% on Metacritic, a review aggregate site.
It lands several years after the depiction of goblins in the extended series of Harry Potter books and movies elicited criticism. Comedian Pete Davidson criticized J.K. Rowling, the books’ author, on “Saturday Night Live” in 2020 for creating a world in which “little giant-nosed Jew goblins” control the banks. In a podcast episode in 2021, comedian Jon Stewart said, “You can ride dragons, and you’ve got a pet owl, and who should run the banks? Jews.”
Those accusations have resurfaced in the days leading up to the video game’s release. Jack Doyle, a writer for The Mary Sue, a publication that describes itself as “the geek girl’s guide to the universe,” wrote that the video game “revives the antisemitic trope.” Doyle added that “the game seems to be of the opinion that the ‘moral’ choice is to crush the [goblin] rebellions, thereby returning goblins to subjugation.”
The website for “Hogwarts Legacy” says that “J.K. Rowling was not involved in the creation of the game,” though developers “collaborated closely with her team on all aspects of the game.” Rowling herself does not appear to have directly addressed the antisemitism allegations.
Rowling does have defenders in the Jewish community — even as some of them acknowledge antisemitic undertones to the goblins. She has repeatedly condemned antisemitism publicly, particularly among supporters of former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Following Stewart’s comments, the U.K.’s Campaign Against Antisemitism said in a statement that “the portrayal of the goblins in the Harry Potter series is of a piece with their portrayal in Western literature as a whole” and “is a testament more to centuries of Christendom’s antisemitism than it is to malice by contemporary artists. So it is with JK Rowling, who has proven herself over recent years to be a tireless defender of the Jewish community.”
Travis Northup, who wrote a glowing review of the game for IGN, a popular video game journalism website, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he did not think the game’s premise echoed an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
“The story does not depict a cabal of bank-controlling goblins trying to take over the world,” Northup wrote in a Twitter direct message. “It’s about one particular goblin rebelling against the Wizarding World’s insistence on keeping magic out of the hands of their kind.”
Northup added, though, “I certainly won’t deny that the Wizarding World’s depiction of goblins in general has always been a bit questionable — even before this game.” Northrup added that whether concerns over that “questionable” portrayal should have influenced game developers is “a tough question.”
“I imagine that Avalanche had to work within established Potter lore, which includes the goblin rebellions,” he said. “I don’t know enough about the situation there or the creative freedoms they were allowed to take.”
Northup noted that the games’ writers “go out of their way to make you interact with good goblins who don’t share the evil goblin’s ideals.” He also said he thought the developers included a trans woman in the game to “almost certainly distance themselves from Rowling’s views” on transgender people.
“It’s a world a lot of people love and I think the developers did their best to make it better than it was before Hogwarts Legacy, which is admirable,” Northup wrote.
Yonah Gerber, a video game archivist, had a different take, noting other details of the game that they said verge on antisemitism. The game includes a description of a horn that resembles a shofar, which “goblins [used] during the 1612 Goblin Rebellion to rally troops and generally annoy witches and wizards,” Gerber said.
“If this was the first time a Rowling property has been antisemitic, that’s a woopsie. But it’s not,” Gerber tweeted. “Even if these are coincidences, had the development team made a point to avoid antisemitic caricatures and educated themselves on that history, this wouldn’t have happened. They chose not to care. And that’s not much better, really.”
Gerber, who is Jewish and nonbinary, told the New York Jewish that “it sucks” that so many people are playing the game.
“I can’t do anything about the fact that people care more about entertainment than actual people harmed by said entertainment,” Gerber said.
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The post Are the goblins in ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ antisemitic? The Harry Potter video game renews criticism. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Justice Dept. to Seek Death Penalty for Man Accused of Murdering 2 Israeli Embassy Staffers
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum, pose for a picture at an unknown location, in this handout image released by Embassy of Israel to the US on May 22, 2025. Photo: Embassy of Israel to the USA via X/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – The Justice Department will seek the death penalty for the man accused of murdering two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington outside a Jewish museum, prosecutors said in a court filing Friday.
Elias Rodriguez faces federal hate crime and murder charges in the killings of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, the couple he shot execution-style as they left an event at the museum last May. Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” during the shooting and later told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
The indictment includes a hate crime resulting in death and notice of special findings, which allows prosecutors to pursue the death penalty.
“My message to anyone who seeks to commit political violence in this district — D.C. is not the place. You will be held accountable and you will face the full wrath of the law,” Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said on Friday.
Prosecutors described the killing as calculated and planned, saying Rodriguez flew to the Washington region from Chicago ahead of the event at the Capital Jewish Museum with a handgun in his checked luggage.
Rodriguez went inside the museum after murdering his victims and said, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza, I am unarmed,” according to court documents. He also told interrogators of his that he admired Aaron Bushnell, an active-duty Air Force member who set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in February 2024, describing Bushnell as “courageous” and a “martyr.”
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Israel Kills Hamas Armed Wing Leader Haddad in Gaza Strike
People carry a body identified by mourners as Hamas’ military wing commander Izz al-Din al-Haddad, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Friday, during a funeral, in Gaza City, May 16, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
An Israeli airstrike on Gaza killed the chief of Hamas’ military wing, the most senior official from the Palestinian terrorist group killed by Israel since an October US-backed ceasefire agreement that was meant to halt fighting.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed in what it described as a precise strike on Gaza City on Friday. Israel has repeatedly carried out strikes on Gaza since the ceasefire started.
Hamas confirmed in a later statement that Haddad, who was born in 1970, was killed along with his wife and daughter. It described him as a central figure in directing combat operations and accused Israel of trying to achieve politically through killings what it had failed to achieve militarily.
At Al Aqsa Martyrs Mosque in central Gaza, a joint funeral was held on Saturday for Haddad, his wife and their 19-year-old daughter.
CASUALTIES MOUNT DESPITE CEASEFIRE
In a joint statement with his defense minister on Friday, announcing the military had targeted Haddad, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Haddad was an architect of the October 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Haddad, who became the group’s military chief in Gaza after Israel’s killing of Mohammad Sinwar in May 2025, “was responsible for the murder, abduction, and harm inflicted on thousands of Israeli civilians (and) soldiers,” they said.
Nicknamed “the Ghost,” Haddad had survived multiple assassination attempts by Israel, according to Hamas sources. Israel’s military says that he was one of Hamas’ longest-serving commanders, rising through the ranks from the group’s early establishment in the 1980s to hold several senior positions.
Israel and Hamas remain deadlocked in indirect talks to advance US President Donald Trump’s post-war plan for Gaza that is meant to end more than two years of fighting.
Israel has stepped up attacks in Gaza in the weeks since halting its joint bombing with the U.S. in Iran, redirecting its fire back on the devastated Palestinian territory where the military says Hamas fighters are tightening their grip.
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Piers Morgan is what’s wrong with media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and I can’t stop watching him
Piers Morgan’s online debate about Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times op-ed containing allegations of Israeli dog rape was loud, chaotic and unenlightening — and I couldn’t stop watching it.
That’s a problem. Morgan’s format is a trap. On his YouTube talk show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, he pits people holding intransigent, often extreme positions against each other, goads them to yell at one another across Zoom, and positions himself as the voice of reason in the middle. It’s hateporn — addictive, and not reflective of reality.
And yet Piers Morgan Uncensored and many similar YouTube- and social-media based news programs are where people increasingly get their information and engage with controversial issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These programs rack up views by persuading viewers there is no middle ground, no moderate position, no alternative to conflict. And their strategy is working.
The Kristof episode, which racked up 340,000 views in a day, is titled, “Torture Does NOT Work!” — all Morgan show names have one word in all caps and end in an exclamation point.
It begins with people shouting. “You are not a journalist!” Ana Kasparian, a commentator on another YouTube show, shouts at podcaster and online anchor Emily Schrader — before Morgan comes on to introduce the segment.
He quickly recaps the lurid details from Kristof’s New York Times oped, “The Silence That meets the Rape of Palestinians,” and a newly issued nearly-300 page Israeli report on Hamas sexual violence.
“As far as I’m concerned, the only cause is basic human decency,” Morgan says in his cool British accent, “If your first instinct about either report is to look for ways to smear them, you might have run out of that yourself.”
Yet the six deeply partisan guests spend the next 45 minutes smearing the reports, and each other.
Morgan’s introductory call for human decency is not a plea, it’s a ploy. He plays the mature voice of reason standing between the extremist pro-Israelis and the pro-Palestinians — not to persuade them to come to a moderate position, but rather to exploit the most virulent voices in order to generate clicks, while still claiming the cover of journalism. This approach causes real harm by giving extremists a megaphone, and a degree of exposure that all but guarantees that people actually trying to build a better future go unheard.
A recipe for drama
Morgan repeats this formula over and again. In an episode entitled, “Netanyahu CONNED Trump!” Dave Smith, a sidekick to Joe Rogan, accuses Israel of dragging the United States into the Iran war. In “I’m SICK of it!” commentator Megyn Kelly launches into a similar attack on Israel.
Morgan has had long interviews with white supremacist and proud antisemite Nick Fuentes (“What a crock of S***!”). In “STAND for Dead Soldiers!” Morgan hosted four Israelis at the extreme ends of the political spectrum and watched them fight when one refused to stand as a siren sounded to honor Israel’s fallen soldiers.
Not extreme or dramatic enough? How about the time Morgan hosted Crackhead Barney, a Black pro-Palestinian street activist, to explain why she harasses celebrities to get them to say, “Free Palestine.”
“I’m truly shocked/disgusted that @piersmorgan would have this nutjob & clearly unwell person to go on his show and even remotely try to talk about Palestine or the war,” wrote the Gazan-born activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib.
Alkhatib is a moderate Palestinian who works for a peaceful solution to the conflict. He has, unsurprisingly, not been on Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Instead, Morgan’s choice of guests is calculated for maximum friction, a function of an attention economy that monetizes the time people like me spend watching the fights.
From ‘Animal House’ to Piers Morgan
Luring viewers this way isn’t exactly new. President Ronald Reagan called The McLaughlin Group, a current affairs program that ran on public television for 34 years beginning in 1982, “the political equivalent of Animal House”— more drunken frat house than graduate seminar. McLaughlin begat Crossfire, a CNN political debate program hosted by a younger Tucker Carlson that Jon Stewart once compared to pro-wrestling.
In 2025, Morgan, who came up in British tabloids before a long stint at CNN, moved away from traditional broadcast TV and went all in on social media and his YouTube channel.
His success on that platform is part of a larger shift in media from major institutions to independent personalities, and from actual news — the dutiful and expensive process of finding out and relaying what’s actually happening in the world — to opinion that spins itself as reporting, which is far cheaper and more entertaining.
That shift has come as audiences have moved from loyalty to long established institutions to following enterprising, independent personalities. The podcaster Joe Rogan has 20.9 million subscribers; Carlson has 5.6 million; Morgan’s show has 4.42 million subscribers and over 1.36 billion total views.
In other words, Morgan is not some guy some people watch now. He is what people will be watching in the future.
A bias toward extremes
That prospect should alarm us. Morgan’s shows rarely feature people working toward compromise or reconciliation. A Piers Morgan Uncensored discussion spotlighting the many civil society groups in Israel working toward coexistence? A show where he sits down with Arab and Jewish Israelis who share a vision for a common future? A segment that highlights the actual, albeit rare, instances of cooperation?
Pipe dreams. All that is also happening in Israel and the West Bank — but Piers Morgan Uncensored effectively censors it.
Compare that to Jon Stewart, who on The Daily Show last month conducted a long interview with the Palestinian and Israeli co-authors of The Future Is Peace, a book that calls for moving beyond violence and stalemate to a shared future. Same approach — a streaming interview on a hot-button topic, with an eye toward entertainment — but radically different editorial choices.
That episode garnered a mere 400,000 views. Morgan’s comparative millions of eyeballs may, in his mind, justify his guttersweeping approach to international conflict. And in his defense — and mine, for watching — it’s never boring. He can be a thoughtful and provocative interviewer, and his not-ready-for-primetime, self-created show allows him, when he so chooses, to platform voices that more mainstream venues overlook, like former Israeli Speaker of the Knesset and longtime peace activist Avrum Burg.
Alas, he stuck the erudite former statesman with a diehard evangelical and a firebreathing American Jewish conservative pundit. That episode is called, “A SHAME on Judaism!”
Whatever this is, it’s not journalism. But it is the future.
The post Piers Morgan is what’s wrong with media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and I can’t stop watching him appeared first on The Forward.