The Return of the "Jewish Question"
An interview with Hillsdale College professor David Azerrad
In the past few years, we have seen the return of the so-called Jewish question, or “JQ,” on some parts of the dissident Right, as high-profile influencers promote the idea that Jews are to blame for a wide array of problems in America, from foreign policy failures and financial crises to woke capture and cultural decay. Hillsdale College professor David Azerrad recently published an essay in Compact magazine diagnosing the causes and potential effects of this trend. In this episode of Rufo & Lomez, Azerrad helps us explore the return of the “JQ,” why it has gained traction with young men, and what it could mean for the future of America.
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Rufo: David, I’m excited to talk about your Compact essay, which I thought was important and did not get enough attention, on the return of the Jewish question, or the “JQ.”
There’s been an avalanche of insanity over the last couple of years about Jews, Israel, and Israeli and Jewish Americans. I think the piece that you wrote was the piece that needed to get written. To help us frame this conversation, would you mind summarizing the essay’s main points and telling us a bit more about its origins?
Azerrad: This subject has been on my mind for some time, but I suppose conditions needed to get really bad for me to think that it warranted an argument.
The essay examined the two central claims of those who are obsessed with the Jewish question. One is that Israel and Jews in America control U.S. foreign policy, and that therefore America is at the service of Israel and Israel is responsible for all of America’s wars—Exhibit A, of course, being the Iraq War. To investigate that claim, I looked at the best argument I could find, which is a chapter in John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
The second pillar of the argument is not a foreign policy one; it’s a domestic one. Many today look at America’s problems and the state of our politics and ask, ‘Whose fault is it?’ In many corners of the internet, the answer is the Jews. There, I looked at the argument that Jews are supposedly responsible for every horrible left-wing movement in America and the West, basically since Karl Marx, along with all sorts of degenerate social trends. There, I engaged with, again, the best argument I could find—which is not Nick Fuentes or Candace Owens, but Kevin MacDonald’s book, The Culture of Critique.
In the essay, I acknowledged that these arguments have some limited basis in reality—as most conspiracy theories do—and acknowledged that there is an undeniable appeal to blaming the Jews for everything. But I then proceeded, as best as I could, to demolish the arguments. Both claims, I argue, are premised on what I called selective noticing. You just notice the Jewish footprint on the Left and in foreign policy, and you completely ignore, for example, the Jewish footprint on the Right. Or, more importantly, you ignore all the factors that have nothing to do with Jews that explain our current predicament. That’s basically the essay.
Lomez: You mentioned at the start it would take a lot for you to even sit down to write this, to acknowledge that these questions around Jewry, international Jewry, organized Jewry, or whatever term you want to use, are worthy of a debate and are worthy of a response. What exactly were you seeing that compelled you to write this?
And secondly—and I’m not sure I have my own answer to this—why now? Why are we seeing, over the last two to three years and perhaps reaching a boiling point now, these questions about Jewish influence becoming so salient? To be sure, it’s not like this is all brand new—it’s been around for a long time in fringe corners of the Right. And it’s been a siloed part of American discourse for a long time. Why has it leaked out into the broader conversation now?
Azerrad: Very good questions. I teach at Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C., campus, so I’m in contact with a lot of young people on the Right. I’ve noticed in recent years that this has become an issue in a way that it just wasn’t before.
I’ve been living in D.C. since 2008. I’ve been involved with the Right for my whole career, including work at the Heritage Foundation, where I did all the educational programs for the interns. These questions just never came up. But in recent years I’ve noticed that some of the young men with whom I’m in contact—and it is always men—mention things. They mention names and websites.
Another factor was the trifecta of Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and Candace Owens. I don’t pay much attention to Candace Owens. When she shows up on my X feed, she just seems completely unhinged. Fuentes was, until quite recently, not on many people’s radars, at least among people our age. But then Tucker gave him a two-and-a-half-hour platform. Of course, Tucker himself, in the last one or two years, has been drifting in that direction.
I’m Jewish, which I mention in the essay. I’ve never once encountered anti-Semitism. I’m not on high alert for it, but I just noticed that this argument was out there. And I noticed how quickly this stuff can rot the brains of highly promising young people. That’s what really offends me—not as a Jew, but as a conservative. We’re outgunned, we’re outmanned, and our country is under assault. Every young man who goes down this rabbit hole is someone we’re losing for the cause of reclaiming our country. So that’s why I wrote the essay now.
