To beat back the surge in antisemitism since the Oct. 7 attacks and the resulting war in Gaza, there needs to be a concerted war waged against the “algorithmic hate machines” of social media platforms, the source of so much of the anti-Jewish discourse online.

That was a key takeaway from a Milken Institute Global Conference session on Tuesday titled “Combatting the New Cycle of Antisemitism.” The panel, moderated by the Milken Family Foundation’s executive vice president, Richard Sandler, featured Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee; Nicole Guzik, a senior rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles; Jewish philanthropist and journalist Jacki Karsh; Steven Weitzman, director of University of Pennsylvania’s Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies; and Pete Peterson, dean of Pepperdine University’s school of public policy.

Sandler opened with familiar statistics: 86% of Jewish Americans feel antisemitism is increasing, last year was the deadliest year for Diaspora Jewry in decades, and the cost of security for Jewish institutions is skyrocketing.

The panelists leveled sharp rebukes of social media’s role in spreading and generating antisemitic content, identified as a core cause of the current situation. 

Karsh referred to the current state of social media as a “five-degree dumpster fire,” describing antisemitism as a symptom of a broader societal ill metastasized by an “information war” being waged through social media algorithms and disinformation. (Disclosure: This reporter is a fellow of Karsh Journalism Fellowship.)

Weitzman discussed how the spread of antisemitism among younger demographics through social media is the result of bots and external actors attempting to sow chaos in the United States. “A lot of antisemitism now is synthetic. It is artificially produced by bots, by AI. It’s not produced by human beings,” he said. “AI can fabricate history. We know from research that AI is manufacturing false documents from the period of the Holocaust. It’s manufacturing images. So synthetic antisemitism is a real, real problem.”

On university campuses, said Weitzman, the actions of a vocal anti-Israel minority were blown out of proportion on social media, and has led to backlash against universities that is not “in proportion.” Weitzman called for the Jewish community “not to give up on the university,” and instead lean in. 

“People’s impressions of what’s happening on campus is based on social media. It’s based on the same misinformation that you’re talking about, which stokes outrage and stokes suspicion,” he said. “I would ask people to note that, maybe Harvard deserves it, maybe Columbia deserves it, maybe Penn deserves it, but there’s a backlash against universities throughout America.”

Deutch, who took over at AJC a year before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, said that combating antisemitism requires a “whole-of-society approach,” from government, educational institutions, social media companies and allied communities, that starts with acknowledging that the Jewish community’s current experience is “not normal.”

For social media companies specifically, said Deutch, in the absence of government regulation, they must be pressured to enforce their own rules and regulations. 

“They have their own protections that they put in place for their users, and they have to enforce them, and we have to make them enforce them,” he said. “For this group at Milken in particular, they need to understand that there is business risk if they continue to allow their platforms to become algorithmic hate machines.”

Deutch also sharply denounced the decision by politicians to platform incendiary antisemitic figures like left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has excused Hamas’ violence against civilians on Oct. 7 and blamed America for 9/11, and far-right commentator Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier.

“It means… building a wall that says that someone like Hasan Piker and someone like Nick Fuentes and their ilk, should not be welcome anywhere, not in any of our gatherings,” he said, to wide applause. “When you say America deserved 9/11 and when you say that the Holocaust didn’t happen, you are not welcome.”

He continued: “The idea that somehow, whether it’s in politics or anything else, that there is this big tent, and we want within that big tent anyone who has who has lots of followers because somehow that’s going to help us — we need everyone who invites those people in to know that we don’t want to be in that same tent with those antisemites.” 

As potential methods of combating antisemitism, Guzik proposed investing in Jewish life and building “deep” alliances and coalitions that go beyond commiserating about crises, citing her synagogue’s recent efforts to connect more deeply with the local Indian community over Shabbat lunch.

“We’re not doing this because of crisis, we’re doing this because we want to get to know each other,” she said. “I think because we’re so much in our bubbles, both in social media, but also in our own social circles, that we’re not even aware of the similarities that exist beyond the walls of the synagogue.”

Guzik also called for increasing funding for Jewish life, even faced with increased security costs. “As much as we’re investing in our security in order to survive, we must invest as much in our ability to thrive, in our ability to provide Jewish joy and strength for our children,” she said. 

Other solutions proposed by the panelists included resisting the urge to retreat. “The period that we’re going through right now where people are calling this the end of the golden age for Jews in America, I would say, if that’s how you feel, then take a step forward. Take a step in. Lean in more to fixing what is wrong, as opposed to retreating,” said Karsh.