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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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NYC’s Eric Adams condemns anti-Israel art exhibit: ‘Activism is not an excuse for antisemitism’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams used his podium in City Hall Thursday to take aim at an anti-Israel art installation that appeared on Governors Island over the weekend.
In a virtual address, Adams also took thinly veiled aim at Zohran Mamdani, the frontrunner to replace him after next week’s election, suggesting that the kind of antisemitism that he said had festered even under his leadership would explode under Mamdani’s.
Adams’ address centered on an installation, housed in the House 11 cabin owned by the Trust for Governors Island and occupied by Swale, a floating food forest nonprofit, that featured paintings that included the words “F—k Israel Ln” and “Hamas Lover.”
The exhibit, which was displayed on Sunday, was “unsanctioned by Governor’s Island” and was taken down a few hours after it was installed, Adams said.
“This incident disturbs me, and it should disturb anyone with a conscience,” said Adams in a virtual address from City Hall on Thursday. “I’ve talked a lot about how we’ve seen these incidents erode the fabric of cities across the globe, but in New York City, we must never tolerate this type of prejudice.”
Swale denounced the exhibit in a post on Instagram, writing that it was “devastated that someone would use a restorative project for their own personal platform for sowing discord.”
“The individual responsible was not part of our programming and not an artist-in-residence,” the post read. “The unapproved artist was invited into an empty back studio by a current artist-in-residence during seasonal wind-down without authorization to display work. We view this as a deliberate and malicious act by the artist.”
The artist allegedly behind the installation, Rebecca Goyette, who was identified by the New York Post, authored an op-ed in Hyperallergic where she described developing a relationship with a Palestinian dentist after working on a pro-Palestinian protest at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Adams, who dropped out of the mayoral race last month and last week endorsed Mamdani’s rival, Andrew Cuomo, used his address to decry what he described as the normalization of antisemitism in New York City.
“We are now watching as antisemitism is institutionalized right before our very eyes,” said Adams. “Before we know it, hate moves to the mainstream, and once it is in the mainstream, it becomes much harder to mobilize against. We saw that with apartheid. We saw that with the Holocaust, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t see seeds of it planted within our own city government.”
Later, Adams took aim at “those who want to say they want to globalize the intifada,” an apparent reference to mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani who caught fire from Jewish leaders after he declined to condemn the pro-Palestinian slogan during a podcast appearance in June.
A month later, Mamdani told business leaders at a closed-door meeting that he would discourage the use of the phrase.
“I know it is not too late for New York,” said Adams. “We will never surrender our city to hate or to those who want to say they want to ‘globalize the intifada,’ or to choose and believe and not refuse to condemn it, because it’s literally a phrase that means death to Jews all over the world.”
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Heritage Foundation president stands by Tucker Carlson after host platforms antisemitism
The president of the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank, defended right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson and said the group would not cut ties with him days after Carlson hosted an interview with antisemitic influencer Nick Fuentes.
Kevin Roberts also said in a video on the social network X that Christians should reject calls not to criticize Israel, which he said were coming from a “venomous coalition” of “bad actors,” and that conservatives should further refrain from “canceling” Fuentes.
“We will always defend truth, we will always defend America and we will always defend our friends against the slander of bad actors who serve someone else’s agenda,” Roberts said. “That includes Tucker Carlson, who remains, and, as I have said before, always will be, a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
He warned Carlson’s critics: “Their attempt to cancel him will fail.”
It was a striking show of support from the influential conservative organization, which previously put out “Project Esther,” a right-wing plan to counter antisemitism post-Oct. 7. The Heritage Foundation was also behind Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for President Donald Trump’s second term in office that has been closely adhered to on a policy level, and has farmed many of Trump’s closest associates.
Fuentes has mounted an outside bid for influence within the larger right-wing movement, using overt antisemitism as his main flank. His chummy conversation with Carlson, who agreed with the provocateur on many issues including Israel, was seen as a further mainstreaming of antisemitic views within the right.
Roberts, however, saw it as embodying the conservative ideals of free debate.
“I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says,” Roberts said, without elaborating. “But canceling him is not the answer, either. When we disagree with a person’s thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas in debate. And we have seen success in this approach as we continue to dismantle the vile ideas of the left.”
Framing Carlson’s critics as dissatisfied online, Roberts continued, “The Heritage Foundation didn’t become the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement by canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians. And we won’t start doing that now. We don’t take direction from comments on X.”
Elsewhere, the Heritage head staked out a position that was critical of Israel, at a time when once-sacrosanct support for the country on the right is diminishing.
“Christians can critique the state of Israel without being antisemitic. And of course, antisemitism should be condemned,” he said. “My loyalty as a Christian and as an American is to Christ first, and America always. When it serves the interests of the United States to cooperate with Israel and other allies, we should do so, with partnerships on security, intelligence and technology. But when it doesn’t, conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.”
(The term “globalist” has a history of being used as an antisemitic dog whistle.)
Roberts’s remarks on only supporting Israel when it suits the United States echoed similar statements made by Vice President JD Vance in Mississippi Wednesday evening — at an event in which Vance, too, was criticized for failing to condemn a question laced with antisemitism. In his video, Roberts also called Vance a friend and positively referenced his comments.
On X, some conservative Jews criticized Roberts.
“There can be no respectful debate with people who have said the things that Fuentes and Tucker have said about Jews,” replied Mike Ginsberg, a Jewish Virginia Republican. “Regarding Jews, neither Tucker nor Fuentes have taken rational political positions one can debate honestly … Choosing to associate with them — consciously, knowing what they have said about Jews — is a choice.”
One person thankful for Roberts’s remarks was Fuentes himself.
“Thank you for your courage in standing up for open discourse and defending Tucker against the Israel First Woke Right,” he wrote to Roberts on X.
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Islamic Group CAIR Protests Expected Sale of TikTok to ‘Anti-Palestinian Billionaires’
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a prominent Muslim advocacy group linked to extremist organizations, has sent a letter to US lawmakers claiming that the expected sale of the social media platform TikTok’s US operations to a group of investors that includes Jewish and pro-Israel businessmen could suppress online criticism of Israel.
In the letter, dated Oct. 28, CAIR claimed that some of the rumored buyers — Oracle co-founder and board chair Larry Ellison, Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell — are “anti-Palestinian billionaires” seeking to silence TikTok users critical of Israel’s defensive military campaign in Gaza. The group urged lawmakers to oppose any sale that, in its words, would replace “Chinese disinformation” with “anti-Palestinian disinformation.”
The letter comes as the Trump administration is reportedly finalizing a deal with China to transfer majority ownership of the popular video-sharing platform TikTok from the Chinese company ByteDance to a group of US investors. The move follows the 2024 passage of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which required ByteDance to divest TikTok or face a US ban.
CAIR warned that Oracle could play a central role in the new ownership structure, potentially controlling TikTok’s powerful recommendation algorithm. The organization alleged that such control could be used to downrank content critical of Israel while promoting pro-Israel narratives.
Jewish content creators and employees of TikTok have warned over the past two years, amid the war in Gaza, that the platform promotes antisemitism and has pushed an anti-Israel and anti-Western bias among its young base of users. Specifically, many activists have argued that the algorithm systemically peddles anti-Israel content and disinformation and has become a main vehicle driving antisemitism among the youth.
Ellison, a longtime supporter of Israel, has donated tens of millions of dollars to the Friends of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] nonprofit organization and maintained a personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. CAIR also pointed to the Ellison family’s recent media acquisition of CBS News through Skydance Media, calling it evidence of growing influence by “anti-Palestinian ideologues.”
The letter further accused Dell of supporting the Israeli military through his company’s technology subsidiaries, while citing the Murdoch family’s record of “anti-Palestinian propaganda” via Fox News. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and private equity firm Silver Lake, also rumored to be part of the deal, were criticized for investing in Israeli defense technology firms.
CAIR said TikTok had already begun limiting pro-Palestinian expression, referencing the company’s July 2025 hiring of a former Israeli soldier to monitor user speech. The group claimed this reflected a troubling pattern that could worsen under the new ownership.
While CAIR framed the sale as a threat to free speech, supporters of the divestment argue that US ownership would better safeguard data privacy and national security. The Trump administration has not publicly addressed CAIR’s allegations, and negotiations with China reportedly remain ongoing.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that China has approved the transfer agreement for TikTok, adding that he expects it to move forward in the coming weeks or months but giving no other details.
CAIR has long portrayed itself as a Muslim civil rights organization but has faced bipartisan criticism for controversial statements about Israel and for defending individuals tied to extremist movements. Israeli officials and Jewish advocacy groups have frequently accused CAIR of spreading anti-Israel propaganda under the guise of civil rights advocacy.
In the 2000s, CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November 2023. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”