Antisemitism on Social Media Since October 7, 2023

The October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the resulting war with Gaza has shifted social media experiences of antisemitism in innumerable and catastrophic ways. This analysis of Instagram uses the frameworks of new antisemitism, epistemic antisemitism, and a lethal combination of the two: de-marginalized antisemitism, that fetishizes Palestinians as the ideal subaltern to situate the ways in which Jew hatred manifests daily online. This essay argues the malleability inherent to anti­semitism lends to its current pervasiveness, its intermittent invisibility allows for its longevity, its constantly changing nature gives it power, and the current and often repeated denial of its existence may be what is most frightening. Combined with the personal nature of Instagram, Jew hatred on social media enacts a vio­lence against Jews, triggering an epigenetic response that has real emotional and physical consequences.