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First antisemitism report conducted with the Polish Jewish community shows how ‘Jew’ is used to discredit enemies
WARSAW (JTA) — A Jewish association has released what is being called the first report on antisemitism conducted with direct input from Polish Jewish community organizations, counting 488 incidents in 2022 submitted via an online portal and collected through extensive interviews with community members.
The incident total released on Monday by the Czulent Jewish Association is more than four times the number reported for 2021 by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.
The report’s lead author, Anna Zielińska, said 86% of incidents involved online harassment and insults. She added that the word “Jew” is frequently used online to label an “enemy” as “disloyal, an outsider and unpatriotic.”
“There is not a Polish politician who hasn’t been called a Jew,” Zielińska told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Czulent’s 2022 report detailed one violent act that resulted in injury, four additional violent attacks, 20 threats, 34 instances of damage to Jewish property and memorial sites, 68 cases of antisemitic mass mailings and 372 instances of “abusive” behavior. Zielińska said there was no way to know the real number antisemitic incidents that occur because the “internet is a bottomless pit of hate.”
She is convinced that Czulent, a nongovernmental organization promoting tolerance that cooperates closely with Polish Jewish communities, has just scratched the surface.
“Time and again when I interviewed people they told me they were reluctant to report incidents because it wouldn’t change anything,” said Zielińska, a member of the Warsaw Jewish Community, one of the multiple communal groups under the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland umbrella.
Antisemitic hate speech is more part of the public discourse than it was a decade ago, she added, and focuses on conspiracy theories such as a Jewish involvement in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Czulent report documented 84 cases of public antisemitic statements that were also anti-Ukrainian. When Polish President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki met earlier this month with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, the Polish leaders were accused online of serving Jewish causes, according to Zielińska.
“The context of the Ukrainian-Russian war was used to attack Jews more freely and seemingly legally,” said Zielińska. “In this way antisemitism is being used to discourage the public from supporting Ukrainian refugees.”
Over the past four years, some of the most high-profile antisemitic language in the political arena has been deployed by Grzegorz Braun, a leader of the far-right Confederation Liberty and Independence Party. Braun’s most recent target has been Ukrainian refugees, whom he accuses of seeking to create a “Ukro-Poland” — a reference to “Judeo-Poland,” an expression popularized in the early 20th century by politicians who said Jews wanted to replace Poland with their own state.
In 2019, while he was campaigning, Braun said the United States was a “political and military tool of Jewish blackmail against Poland” and wrote that “Jews have waged war against the Polish nation for centuries, in fact against the whole Christian world.” His party, referred to in Poland as Confederation, is the country’s third most popular, with support from 11% of the electorate, according to a March survey by the independent polling agency Ipsos.
In the upcoming fall parliamentary elections, some analysts have predicted that the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party, which spends significant funds on Jewish monuments and culture, will need the support of Confederation and its voters to form a government. That is one reason some Law and Justice leaders have at times turned a blind eye towards antisemitism, the party’s critics allege.
“We wrote Law and Justice that they had antisemitic comments on their Facebook feed and they didn’t remove them,” Zielińska added.
Over the past five years, specific political developments have fueled negative attitudes towards Jews, she noted. In 2019, thousands of Polish nationalists protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw against U.S. efforts to require Poland to compensate Jews whose families lost property during the Holocaust.
Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, said that although he agreed that online public discourse in Poland could be antisemitic, violent acts of antisemitism were incredibly rare. In 2006, a man who yelled “Poland is for Poles,” hit Schudrich and attacked him with pepper spray.
“Thousands of Hasidim come to Poland each year for various anniversaries and there has never been a real problem” he said. “And as for me, the only time anyone attacked me was under a left-wing government.”
He said he sees no evidence that antisemitism in Poland is on the rise, but he believes the government’s push for a nationalistic patriotic narrative of the past — focused on Polish heroism during the Holocaust — and its courting of the extreme right has had consequences.
“Antisemites today feel more empowered to say what’s on their minds,” he said.
Jews in Poland range in number from more than 15,000, according to a government census, to fewer than 10,000, according to the World Jewish Congress.
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IDF Soldier from Connecticut Killed in Southern Lebanon Combat
Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz. Photo: courtesy.
i24 News – The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday morning the death of Sgt. Moshe Yitzhak Hacohen Katz, 22, originally from New Haven, Connecticut, who was killed during combat operations in southern Lebanon on Saturday.
According to the military, Katz was killed in a rocket attack targeting Israeli forces operating during efforts to expand a security zone in southern Lebanon. The IDF said the strike occurred overnight between Friday and Saturday, during a large-scale barrage aimed at units deployed in the area.
An initial military investigation found that one rocket directly hit an infantry unit from the 890th Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, killing Katz instantly. Three additional soldiers were wounded and are listed in moderate condition.
The IDF said the announcement of Katz’s death was delayed to ensure that all family members, including those in the United States, were properly notified.
The army also said that recent attacks have largely focused on the four IDF divisions operating in Lebanon. In the past 24 hours alone, approximately 250 rockets were launched toward Israeli positions, with 23 crossing into Israeli territory, according to military figures.
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AI-Generated Antisemitic Rabbi Racks Up Millions of Followers with Questionable Financial Advice
i24 News – An AI-generated character known as Rabbi Goldman has attracted millions of followers online by combining old antisemitic tropes with digital-age conspiracy theories. The avatar, presented as a caricature of a New York rabbi, plays off stereotypes of Jewish power and wealth while dispensing unsolicited “financial advice” and conspiracy-laden commentary about global elites.
In his videos, Rabbi Goldman claims that Jews have “known every secret for thousands of years,” weaving age-old prejudice into modern misinformation. Among his assertions: that the moon landing was faked, the US government will soon exert total control over its citizens, and billionaires stage yacht sinkings for insurance fraud—all allegedly foreknown by “the Jews.”
Before being removed on Sunday night, his Instagram account had racked up over 1.5 million followers. Yet the same page remains active on Facebook, which shares an owner with Instagram, with roughly 180,000 followers and thousands of interactions per post. The comments reveal an audience that is genuinely engaged with, and emboldened by, his vitriolic rhetoric.
Rabbi Goldman’s videos follow a simple formula designed to thrive in algorithm-driven ecosystems. They begin with a cryptic slogan implying secret knowledge or hidden wealth — invoking Jews as the keepers of these secrets — to draw viewers in and extend watch time, thus being featured on more people’s feeds. What follows is a cascade of AI-generated, factually dubious monologues, all culminating in a pitch: he can show you how to acquire the same “Jewish wisdom.”
That pitch leads to his website, where a manual titled How to Make and Invest Money sells for $9, and he claims it has been purchased by over 4,000 people. The real product, however, carries a fuller title — How to Make and Invest Money Like the Jews. The 62-page PDF amounts to generic, AI-spun financial advice labeled as “the Jewish method,” occasionally interspersed with random references to the Talmud. Just like the videos, it references how Jews have managed to be successful for thousands of years but offers little backup as to how that can translate to a real-world scenario.
Most of it plays off the stereotype of Jews being financially astute. But some lines, such as “Jews do not day trade… We buy the market — the entire market — and we hold it indefinitely,” remove the mask entirely.
Whether we like it or not, antisemitism thrives online—and platforms’ recent loosening of content restrictions under the banner of “free speech” has only amplified it. Social media has become an ideal environment for grifters to blend prejudice with profit. And that is, to their credit, what the creators of Rabbi Goldman have done.
They have clearly borrowed from the “manosphere” playbook—a cluster of influencers promoting hyper-masculine, materialistic lifestyles infused with misogyny and antisemitism. Like Andrew Tate and similar figures, Rabbi Goldman appeals to disaffected young men who feel alienated by the economy and society in which they live, eager to locate a scapegoat.
In Goldman’s case, the scapegoats are the elites and billionaires. But the framing of the Jews alongside the elites has, by proxy, made them the scapegoat too. By merging coded hatred with generic Instagram-style self-help language, the character transforms antisemitism into a marketable aesthetic.
So essentially, the creator of Rabbi Goldman has found a niche in an emerging market, playing off of antisemitism to sell cheaply produced slop to teenagers. Which is both entrepreneurial and morally awful. But the issue is that social media has bred the ground for this by rewarding shock content and letting antisemitism often go untouched. Even when they deleted his Instagram account, dozens of copycats popped up, including an absurdly ironic German-language version that uses the likeness of British politician Jeremy Corbyn.
And this is what happens when social media companies are reactive rather than proactive. They were chasing shadows after the account became so big. Instead, they need to cut it out at its source, be tougher on antisemitism, and be more vigilant with AI content.
And for social media users, it is hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t anymore. Just try not to get financial advice from an AI rabbi who thinks the moon landing was fake.
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Pezeshkian Clashes with IRGC Over Iran’s War Strategy and Economy
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attends the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit 2025, in Tianjin, China, September 1, 2025. Iran’s Presidential website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Deep divisions have reportedly emerged within Iran’s leadership as the war enters its fifth week, with tensions growing between President Masoud Pezeshkian and senior figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to a report by Iran International.
The report by Iran International claims Pezeshkian has sharply criticized the military escalation strategy led by IRGC commanders, warning of severe economic consequences if the conflict continues.
He is said to have cautioned that without a ceasefire, Iran’s economy could “completely collapse within three weeks to a month.”
According to the same report, Pezeshkian has called for the restoration of executive and administrative authority to the civilian government, a demand reportedly rejected by IRGC leadership, including Ahmad Vahidi.
Vahidi is said to have pushed back, blaming the current crisis on the government’s failure to implement structural reforms prior to the war and recent protest movements.
Meanwhile, signs of economic strain are becoming increasingly visible across Iran. Reports from several major cities describe ATMs that are empty, out of service, or inaccessible, alongside repeated disruptions to online banking systems.
Public sector employees have also reported delays in salaries and benefits over the past three months.