For the past 2 1/2 years, the Jewish community has focused on the visible manifestations of Jew-hatred: campus harassment, vandalism, threats, protests and security incidents. But new research from Boundless suggests the more significant shift may be happening somewhere less visible and far more pervasive.

Our recent national survey on media consumption and antisemitism found that 71% of Americans say conspiracy theories are common online, and among people who report seeing opinions about Jewish people online, 31% say what they encountered was hateful.

Azam Kamolov/Pixabay

Exposure to anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content online cuts across age groups and political ideologies: consumers of both liberal and conservative media reported encountering similar levels of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content. At the same time, Americans who frequently consume content from ideologically-driven news sources are more than twice as likely than those who do not to encounter anti-Jewish content online.

Antisemitism used to be understood as a problem of extremists and fringe actors. Today, anti-Jewish narratives move differently. They travel through algorithms, influencer ecosystems, memes, podcasts, livestreams and emotionally charged fragments of content that blur the line between political commentary, conspiracy and activism. Antisemitism now spreads less like an organized movement and more like an atmosphere: ambient, repeated, absorbed through constant exposure to suspicion, conspiracy and ideological framing. 

This changes the strategic challenge facing the Jewish community.

People do not need to join extremist groups to absorb antisemitic ideas. They simply need to spend enough time online. Our polling found that people who spend more than five hours per day on social media are more likely to hold anti-Jewish views. It is no surprise, then, that younger Americans are significantly more likely to believe anti-Jewish stereotypes related to power, control and dual loyalty.

Importantly, this environment does not always present itself as overtly antisemitic. More often, antisemitism arrives through frameworks where Jews and “Zionists” become symbols of hidden power, manipulation, censorship, money or control. Complex world events are collapsed into emotionally satisfying explanations that identify a single villain operating behind the scenes.

And it’s working. One-third of Americans report seeing claims about “Zionist control” online, and a meaningful number regard them as either true or a fair political opinion.

That reality has profound implications for Jewish communal strategy and philanthropy. Much of our communal infrastructure was built to respond to incidents: security threats, hate crimes, campus crises, vandalism and public controversies. We have become accustomed to mobilizing rapid responses after something happens.

We cannot security-guard our way out of an information ecosystem that normalizes conspiratorial thinking and rewards outrage. Nor can we treat antisemitism solely as a communications problem requiring better messaging after the fact. It requires investments in digital literacy, narrative resilience, long-term educational strategy and research capable of identifying how anti-Jewish narratives evolve online before they become mainstream assumptions. It also requires understanding that younger generations are not merely consuming information differently. They are forming their moral and political frameworks inside algorithmic systems optimized for emotional intensity, identity formation and distrust.

If we respond only to the visible manifestations of antisemitism, while failing to understand how it evolves, spreads and embeds itself within the broader information environment, we will always find ourselves a step behind the problem we are trying to confront.

Aviva Klompas is CEO and co-founder of Boundless, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting antisemitism. She is also the host of the “Boundless Insights” podcast.