Deconstructing Antisemitic Memes: Helping Students Critically View Online Hate

• Why is it important to be able to recognize hate when we encounter it?
• What antisemitic tropes and conspiracy narratives are embedded in antisemitism on social media?
• What forms does antisemitism take on social media?

• Connect contemporary antisemitic memes to historical antisemitic material.
• Identify antisemitic tropes and conspiracy narratives embedded in memes found on social media platforms.
• Deconstruct antisemitic imagery in order to uncover and analyze the intended messages, emotional appeal, target audience, and use of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy narratives.
• Decrease the susceptibility to consume antisemitic or racist content online without recognizing it as such or to internalize the false ideas such content promotes.

This lesson is designed to fit into two 50-min class periods and includes:

• 1 handout
• Student-facing slides

We as a society are still grappling with how to combat identity-based hate expressed on social media: how to contend with the speed at which content is spread on social media, whom to hold accountable for its spread, how to contain its reach, and how to respond to it. Social media is a newer addition to more traditional levers of power—a lever wielded by celebrities, politicians, and influencers with millions of followers, then fortified by everyday users who like and repost tweets, memes, or videos until they achieve viral status. Algorithms often mark social media engagement without discerning whether users are responding to content favorably or critically, leading not only to the amplification of hate online but, on certain platforms, to users receiving more unwanted racist or bigoted content. Hate on social media can take many forms, including text-based posts, such as tweets, comments on others’ posts, and the focus of this lesson, memes.

Tracking the fluctuation of identity-based hatred on social media poses myriad challenges, as both social media platforms and our engagement with them are constantly evolving, but it’s clear that antisemitism has a persistent and robust presence in these spaces. On TikTok alone, antisemitic comments increased 912% from 2020 to 2021. ¹ The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that 714 anti-Semitic posts on social media received 7.3 million views in two months in 2021. Of these anti-Semitic posts, only 16% of the posts were removed by the social media companies. ² In a 2022 ADL youth survey, three out of four marginalized youth reported being harassed online because of their identity. ^₃ Such harassment can harm the mental health of those whose identities are targeted, making them feel fearful and isolated. It can also lead to identity suppression. Young people report leaving their Jewish identities off of their social media presence in order to avoid anti-Jewish responses.

It’s also critical to understand that antisemitism on social media does not stay there; it leads to antisemitic incidents in non-virtual spaces. For example, in the weeks following Kanye West’s antisemitic tweets in November of 2022, a neo-Nazi group hung an antisemitic banner referencing his tweets from a freeway overpass in Los Angeles; the Holocaust Museum LA (whose invitation for a private tour West rejected) was flooded with hate mail; and antisemitic messages referencing his tweets were projected at a college football game in Jacksonville, Florida. Online hatred has also been linked to acts of mass violence around the world, including the shootings in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand; the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; a supermarket in Buffalo, New York; and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Recognizing online antisemitism in both visual and text-based forms is a critical step in effectively responding to it, one that requires an understanding of the mythology—the tropes, coded language, and conspiracy narratives—that fuel antisemitism. Providing young people with the tools to critically analyze and deconstruct antisemitic messaging online will help them better navigate virtual spaces where they will almost certainly encounter antisemitism as well as other forms of identity-based hatred without falling victim to this propaganda.

• 1Natalie Masri and Gabriel Weimann, “New Antisemitism on TikTok,” in Monika Hübscher and Sabine von Mering, eds., Antisemitism on Social Media (Routledge, 2022), 172.
• 2“Failure to Protect,” Center for Countering Digital Hate, July 30, 2021.
• 3ADL Center for Technology and Society, “Online Hate and Harassment: The American Experience 2022 .”

As an opening activity, have students respond privately to the following questions in their journals: 

• Have you witnessed or experienced antisemitism or other identity-based hatred in virtual spaces (e.g., social media, YouTube, online gaming)? 
• What did you see? 
• How did it make you feel? 
• How did you respond?
• Monika Hübscher, scholar and co-editor of the research anthology Antisemitism and Social Media, calls online hate “textual and visual violence.” Do you agree? In what ways could text or images be categorized as violence?

You may wish to have students volunteer to share their answers with the whole class or engage in a Think, Pair, Share to discuss their answers with a classmate. 

Examining historical antisemitic images can illuminate the persistent nature of antisemitism and help students understand the ulterior motives that fuel antisemitic tropes and conspiracy myths by demonstrating how far back these ideas can be traced and why they were created. Students will be able to draw connections between these historical images and the contemporary memes they will analyze next. 

For this activity, you may wish to examine the three images located in the slides for this lesson (slides 9-11), or at least one of them, as a whole group to model the analysis before breaking the class up into small groups to analyze the remaining images. It will be helpful for students to have the Antisemitic Tropes Chart from the Antisemitism and Its Impacts explainer on hand as they examine these images.

Note: Historical context for each of image is provided in the speaker notes of the slides. We recommend that students first observe the images without any context, generate questions they need to have answered in order to properly interpret the images, and then research the origins of the images themselves. Teachers should use their discretion in determining whether to provide the linked context to students directly.

Use a variation of the Analyzing Images teaching strategy to help students shift into a mode of close and critical observation, a skill they will practice more thoroughly in Day 2 of this lesson. You may want to have students record their answers on a Padlet shared with the whole class or simply discuss their answers in small groups or pairs.

• Step 1: Ask students to look closely at the image for a few minutes. Have them observe shapes, colors, textures, the position of people and/or objects, etc.
• Step 2: Have students write down what they see without making any interpretations yet about what the image is trying to say.
• Step 3: Ask students, “What questions do you have about this picture that you would need to have answered before you can begin to interpret it?” List students’ questions (or have students list them).
• Step 4: Have students try to find some of the answers to their questions by broadening their discussion with other students or another group.
• Step 5: Have students identify any antisemitic tropes or conspiracy theories embedded in the image using the Antisemitic Tropes Chart. 
• Step 6: Given the historical context and subject of the piece, ask students what they think the artist is trying to say: What does the piece mean? Who do they think was the intended audience?

Use the Exit Tickets strategy to assess how the first day’s lesson has impacted students at the end of class. You can use exit cards to quickly check for understanding, find out what questions remain, or gauge how the lesson has impacted students emotionally. 

Possible prompts for today’s exit card include: 

• List three things you learned in class today.
• What questions, ideas, and feelings did this lesson raise for you?

First, explain to the class that antisemitic and racist memes are created with the intention to mischaracterize members of a specific group of people in order to advance a narrative of hate that serves the meme creator in some way.

Next, view the Facing History and Ourselves video Deconstructing Antisemitic Memes (7 minutes). You may wish to view the entire video and then discuss, or you may stop the video after each meme has been deconstructed to check for understanding and discuss. If students don’t already have the Antisemitic Tropes Chart from the Antisemitism and its Impacts explainer, provide them with that now, as the chart serves as helpful companion material for the video and the activity that follows. 

A variation of the 3-2-1 teaching strategy can be used to debrief the contents of the video.

Have students jot down:

• Three things they have learned from the video
• Two questions they still have
• One thing they found particularly striking, upsetting, or challenging

Then invite students to share their responses.

First, model deconstructing a meme with the whole class using the procedure in the How to Deconstruct a Meme handout. For this activity, you can use the memes provided in the slides for this lesson (slides 20-24). Next, students will practice deconstructing these antisemitic memes in small groups. You may wish to have groups report out to the whole class on the meme they analyzed. Note that, with some modifications, this guide can be used for critically analyzing any online hate content.

Note: In order to ensure that these images are not viewed without context or distributed outside of the classroom, it is critical that this activity be conducted in the classroom and not as homework. Remind students they may not take screenshots of these memes, and do not photocopy them.

Use the Exit Cards strategy to assess how the lesson has impacted students at the end of class. You can use exit cards to quickly check for understanding, find out what questions remain, or gauge how the lesson has impacted students emotionally.

Here are some prompts you might use:

• List three things you learned in class today.
• What questions, ideas, and feelings did this lesson raise for you?
• How will today’s lesson impact the way you engage with social media?