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A couple days ago my friend Mike Rothschild was in town (well, he was in Portland, still a few hours away) doing the book tour thing. His new book Jewish Space Lasers from Melville House is out now. It’s a history of antisemitism and a critique of its ongoing popularity, particularly visible among the far right, illustrated nowhere better than Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2018 assertion in Congress that a Jewish Space Laser orbits above us, lighting forest fires, because reasons. The book spends a lot of time on the Rothschild family, as they (alongside George Soros) draw the majority of antisemitism in pop culture these days. The reasons, and the history behind it, are fascinating but they are also a sobering cautionary tale. I highly recommend the book.
I am frequently astonished and saddened to see how frequently antisemitism rears its head in the over 900 episodes I’ve done of Skeptoid. You can scarcely find a topic where it does not play some role, mostly in the conspiracy theory category. As has often been noted, it doesn’t matter whether you go around the goat’s left side or its right side, go too far and you’ll end up at the ass: and extremism of any color is where you’ll find the worst antisemitic tropes.
Over a beer or three, Mike and I had the opportunity to discuss the Rothschild’s family’s orders for what I am to lie about this year on Skeptoid the origins of antisemitism. Why is it even a thing? Why are the Jewish people history’s biggest scapegoats? Mike had the answer.