Unfortunately a reoccurring subject. It has a tendency to reappear when you think its gone after the second world war, the holocaust, it seems that antijewish sentiments will be the thing of. The past 6 million perished under nazi extermination machine. The worst is behind us five. The. Those are the saints thoughts that were going through jewish minds 1882, when nationalists conducted a serious of programs that drove 2. 4 million out of the russian empire, or the sixth in 48 close up riots when 40 to 50000 were killed. I can keep on going and tell you about centuries of jewish persecution, but im sure alex will cover some of it in his riveting lecture recently, the Antidefamation League report indicated a 36 increase of attacks in the United States for the year 2022, the highest number on record since adl began tracking antisemitic incidents. In 1979. This is the third time in the past five years that year end total has been the highest number ever recorded. The author and lecturer alex alex ryvchin and i have a similar story. Were both in the soviet union and both immigrated at the same age to countries that protected us and our jewish identity. Alex to australia and i and other. Alex to israel. Im proud to call him a friend and im sure youll enjoy his lecture. Alex was born in kiev, ukraine. His family left the soviet as refugees and refuseniks in 1987, when alex was three years old, he attended the Sydney Boys High School and went on to study law and politics at the university of New South Wales he worked for a member of state legislator, a researcher and speechwriter before practicing law at two of the Worlds Largest law firms. First in sydney and then in london. He served the spokesperson for the Zionist Federation of the United Kingdom and was awarded a prestigious israel fellowship to work as. A Research Fellow and staff writer at a jerusalem based think tank. In 2013, he joined the executive council of australian jewry, australias premier, representative and advocacy body for the Australian Jewish community, and was promoted to cochief. Officer in 2018, becoming one of the youngest leaders, the jewish diaspora. He he is a member of the jewish diplomatic corps as well. His fourth book which were about to hear, the seven deadly myths, is the subject of this lecture and investing the extraordinary conspiracy theories behind antisemitism. Ladies and gentlemen. Future. Thank you very much is a true pleasure. Be with you all this evening. I want thank the deputy consul alex candler for his generous introduction and for the work he does for the state of israel. I want to thank dylan rice and Charlene Frazier from the for their organizational prowess and for attending to my visit with such professionalism and care. I want to thank each of the hosting organizations the consulate of israel, the world jewish congress, the Antidefamation League and the american jewish. The three organizations at the absolute forefront of the battle against antisemitism and three organizations with which had the honor of working for many years. I also want to thank general naz sultan to don, who is currently in israel. Ive had the good fortune to work with outstanding diplomats over the years, but a not is peer. Shes a person of the highest integrity, devotion and excellence and im proud to call her a friend to be here tonight is a singular honor even going up 10,000 miles from here in sydney australia. The greatness of dr. King filled me with all dr. King teaches us to remain unwaveringly focused in our mission, to be stronger, more resolute than our adversaries when facing overwhelming force. To understand that the means must as pure as the ends we seek. Most of all, he shows us that words. Words spoken and written can alter history and set our societies on new paths. To me, dr. King is the greatest american to be with you all this evening. His city in this center that bears his name is an honor i will cherish for my days. My reasons for writing this new book, the seven deadly myths antisemitism from time of christ to kanye west. A much like the subject matter complex antisemitic and has seen our people dispossessed, displaced, massacred in every generation. But it has also given the pride and sense of duty that comes from enduring, from being survivors, from belonging to a tiny sliver of the jewish people that has made it to this day without intact telling our trying to make sense of it as this book to do is an expression that pride and duty antisemitism is also deeply personal to every. For me and my family, coming from the soviet union, i saw how it affected my parents and grandparents it presented as a sort of looming a tendency to experience joy only while waiting for the next disaster and a fear that seemed to forever look in the eyes. I experience some small dose of this as a boy of 12 or 13 living with my family in a middle class neighborhood in sydney, directly upstairs from lived a man who was a migrant from australia who would stand on his balcony and bellow at us night after alternating between a thunderous, guttural roar and sneering tone full of menace. Hitler didnt finish the job i will finish it for him. It was plainly terrifying to hear and it pains me to see the fear return full bore to my parents eyes. There are many aspects of antisemitism which make it distinct from forms of hatred. Its transmitted through wellhoned mythology and conspiracy. Its characterization of the subject as both inferior and malevolently superior, its capacity to shift from a prejudice to a megalomaniacal quest consumes entire countries and continents. Theres another aspect antisemitism, which makes it unique and which, more than any other reason, compelled me to write this book. For all the ruin it has brought to humanity, for all the misery continues to bring to our communities throughout the world. For all the statistics and Intelligence Report showing how vulnerable and threatening the jewish people remain. Antisemitism is dismissed, erased and downplayed. No other form of hatred is so apparent and yet so denied. And this occurs even in todays climate of hypersensitive city to all forms of discrimination. The are considered too privileged, too powerful, too well organized, too assertive. And these are qualities associated with perpetrators than. This denial of antisemitism is perhaps the ultimate insult and the greatest obstacle to. The question that arises from all this is why. Why are the treated this way . Why have such been inflicted on them throughout their history . Why are they still beaten in the streets, shot in their synagogues, their tombstones smashed and daubed with insignia of those who sought to them from the earth . The philosopher Jeanpaul Sartre theorized that the antisemitism i hate the who he or she really is, but instead hates the mythical. Some creation conjured like all the ills of modernity upon a living, breathing thing. The novelist philip roth thought it all began with shakespeares the merchant events and the very first words that shakespeare put on the lips. Shylock 3000 stupids, a reference to the events, according to ralph, the association with vengefulness and greed was forever forged. Another common explanation is that its a jealousy arising from perceived jewish success. And indeed, we hear much about jewish contributions and achievements. The arts and sciences that 23 of nobel Prize Winners are jewish, despite making up just 0. 1 to 5 of the worlds population. But success does not of itself hatred. We admire those we consider deserving. We only despise those we consider undeserving. In my view, the answer is not the philosopher, ethical or psychological, but certainly financial. Much of what the experience part of their expulsion from judea in the year 135 ce was unremarkable. Slavery in egypt unremarkable. The strong. The weak. As economic resources. Egypt was strong. Israel was weak. Hence israel was enslaved. The conquest of the jewish kingdoms assyria, babylon, greece and rome was also predictable. In an age of expansionist empires, israel was not a great empire. Hence it was conquered. But is remarkable is that the , all of this even became fortified in their sense of self, when others were heard of no more. They emerged from egypt when others were simply away. They returned from exile babylon to rebuild their temple in and establish their own civilization with distinct languages. Culture, traditions and connection to land. Whereas other vanquished, exiled peoples with no land to sustain and keep simply disappeared among the peoples without come to live. Perhaps it is this success, the success of surviving, for which the have never been forgiven. When the greeks and romans came upon the jewish commonwealth, they sought to assimilate its people in order to spread the word influence and suppress the independent thinking that is so dangerous among the colonized people. The fact that the would not pray to form gods rulers drove their rulers frenzy fewer hatred much as those to forget their lonely place. The were the first people to reject the worship of in many gods and find belief in a single, all powerful ever present divinity that the moral, selfless living that sustains societies far better than military might. Soon this of ethical monotheism began to spread both christianity. Islam accepted the fundamental tenets of judaism. But these religions could not thrive as. Mere sects or derivatives of judaism. And in order to prove that they legitimate successors, they had do one of two things. They could convince the the original monotheist, to accept the new faith and thereby accepting that they were legitimate successors. The eighth century muslim historian ibn ishaq wrote that muhammad, indeed appealed to the elders of the jewish tribes that lived around him to accept his new religion. And in response they annoyed him with questions. Sounds about right. Tested his claims and propositions and found them unconvincing. This may be historys earliest recorded of the answering questions with questions. And established the as the villains. The story of islam. When the framers of these new faiths realized the would not be moved and stubbornly that their conception of god, their profits, their testament, were complete and sufficient, they shifted to option number two. If the not accept these new faiths, they must be in a permanently degraded state as living evidence of their defeat. How could the maintain that they correct in their beliefs and had the favor of god . When christians and muslims thrived while lived in suffering after muhammad failed to convince the jewish tribes, he massacred them. Soon laws were passed to isolate. Bring them low, keep them in perpetuity in a humiliated isolated state. By this point, around the beginning of the dark, the fate of the was essentially. Suspicion descended. On this oddity. The people who prayed an extinct tongue possessed land and clung to ancient traditions like superstitions. And this, in turn, justified the enactment of new laws to further separate from non to prevent them from doing harm. And in this separation, the suspicion and, fear around them only grew. Were forbidden from appearing in public during the holy week. They were prohibited Holding Public office in iran. They were prohibited from walking the street during the reign for that, their own cleanliness would wash off to sully muslim shoes. In 1434, the council of basel decreed that could not obtain an Academic Degree or period banquets, festivities with christians or even engage in much conversation. How could they pierce this growing body of lies surrounded them if they had no power to speak. And this is why cherish. And defend our right to advocate. To this day these laws made everything that was claimed about the selffulfilling. Of course, people them to be sinister and insular and tribal and backward. When this catalog of laws that shut them in and shut them out made them appear so. And these laws also established as people of no worth clearly inferior. In George Orwells down and out in paris and london orwell speaks of a conversation with the retired russian officer of the officer says to the world that it was considered poor form in the russian army to, spit on a because an officers spittle was considered too precious to be wasted a. This debasement of the is what would make the ultimate destruction so easy to carry out. The also prohibited from joining guilds, which therefore excluded them from the traditional as merchants and craftsmen, and forced them more and more to turn to the practice of Money Lending which bound them up with the hated elements of money and interest and credit. A dangerous new dynamic. Suddenly, this inferior race stood as creditable to their masters. Then came world affairs, which nothing to do with the , but which would affect them profoundly. The spread of liberal ism. The fall of all monarchies, power structures. The french and russian revolutions. Napoleon tore down ghetto walls and repealed antisemitic laws in the territories. He conquered. But this only unleashed the fury of the local populations and fueled conspiracy theories spread by supporters. The old regimes that since the benefited from these revolutions, that dark hand had in fact orchestrated them. This began the social action of the with radicalism, modernity, and the fall of traditional values and structures. The became the symbol, everything good and cherished, being washed away. This nostalgia, a bygone era, and the belief of the is the agent of its pollution, is common to all antisemitic movements from nazis and to the radical elements. The antiisrael movement today, with the fall of empires and, the rise of nation states based on ethnic, national, religious and linguistic cohesion, the became a problem, be solved. Who were these people . Who is . Leon pinsker said lived everywhere but nowhere in the right place. They lived by the millions. Poland, the window poles in germany on germans. And in this time of shifting borders and civil wars. The became unwanted. Humans stalk they could be ravaged and set upon with impunity. Then came the final disastrous evolution in human thinking the advent of race, science the belief that the world is divided into distinct racial categories, each with their one unchangeable, inherent and behavioral characteristics. Suddenly, the jewish problem could no longer be solved through assimilation or conversion. It required a final. As world wars set in, the were robbed blind, herded into ghettos, transfer in cattle cars to purpose built factories, death, and gassed with the common pesticide, or they were just shot into the danube or crammed into bonds and set alight. This the crescendo to hundreds of years lies and propaganda that had successfully this proud and ancient people as vermin. The creation of the state of israel was meant end jewish vulnerability and ameliorate antisemitism by finally putting the on an equal footing to all other nations. But experience of israel has mirrored that the. Its place. The world is still contested. Its success attracts as much scorn as it does respect, and its often depicted a unique source of evil. It may be that we can never truly the why of antisemitism and. Maybe that it is so ingrained, so available as to evade rational understanding. But by shifting focus from the why to the how. As isaac herzog said in reference to my book of this baffling and dangerous phenomenon, we actually have the of understanding, confronting, diffusing it. The how about antisemitism lies in the seven deadly myths a series of conspiracy theories that have hounded the jewish people for millennia. The blood libel killers of christ. Global domination. Obsession with money. Loyalties. A people that have passed from being oppressed to oppressors. And a people that are superior in based on being the chosen. The myth of global domination is perhaps the most common. All conspiracy theories and the deadliest and its story. A study in the power of propaganda and the frailty of the human mind. The story of the myth of jewish global domination begins with an obscure german writer of historical of the 19th century. In 1875, hermann goodchild published a novel titled periods. And within it was a chapter in. He spoke about a secret meeting of jewish elders in the jewish in prague, held at midnight, where they will plot the downfall of humanity in churches. Each of the elders took their turn, delivering a speech explaining how they would control of government media, liquor, real estate, anything else worth controlling. Its plainly a work of fiction, complete with politics. But its incredibly memorable, compelling stuff because it sought to explain the complex movements and forces in society and laid all blame a single familiar enemy. The chapter was then turned into a separate pamphlet titled, the rabbis speech, which took the 13 speeches and amalgamated them into a single address, supposedly delivered by a rabbi at a sacred communal meeting. The rabbis speech was in, printed and disseminated en masse by a russian fascist group called the black hundreds. At the beginning of the 20th century, in to divert popular outrage of peasants from the czar and the ruling class towards the , a committed antisemite by the name of pavel khrushchev on printed and distributed rabbis speech in a place called kitchener in todays moldova. In 1903, which sparked brutal mob rampage in, a place with no prior history of antisemitic violence. Khrushchev on was appointed the editor of the major newspaper in st moving from the provinces the heart of russian power. He used his new platform to publish for the very first time another antisemitic, perhaps the deadliest text ever written. What the historian norman cohen has called the warrant for genocide the protocols of the elders zion, a british war correspondent traveling with the russian armies during the civil war, said the protocols were everywhere and the officers and of the army blamed the entire cataclysm on the hebrew. They believed that all their misfortune had been caused by some shadowy International Order of muscling of jewish civilians and shoot the protocols, then made their way to germany where they see the minds of the middle class. Just as germany was looking for someone to blame for war, defeat and economic rolling hitler set of the protocol. Once this text becomes generally to all people the jewish menace be regarded as already vanquished. The great industrialist ford played a key role the spread of the jewish global domination conspiracy. Ford purchased his local the minuscule dearborn independent. He then hired the best editors and muckrakers from nearby detroit and turned the paper into one of the highest