Antisemitism flares and ‘Reichstag’ mentions soar online in wake of Charlie Kirk assassination

Attendees at a candlelight vigil and prayer service for Charlie Kirk in Seattle on September 10. Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images

(JTA) — No alleged shooter has yet been identified in the assassination Wednesday of right-wing icon Charlie Kirk. But President Donald Trump is blaming the left and vowing vengeance, while antisemitism is flaring among extremists online who said they believed the Jews and Israel were responsible.

“Charlie Kirk was assassinated by jews,” tweeted an account called Greatest Noticer, whose username is an apparent allusion to a neo-Nazi watchword.

“At this point does anyone not thi[nk] Charlie Kirk was assassinated by Mossad?” tweeted Ryan Matta, a podcast host with more than 200,000 followers, referring to the Israeli spy agency.

Similar allegations spread on X in the hours after the shooting in Utah, repeating a dynamic that unfolds frequently in the wake of major news events. In this case, speculation was fueled by past allegations of antisemitism against Kirk, his recent comments tying Mossad to the Jeffrey Epstein case, and the rapid response to his death by Israeli politicians.

A post from last month by Harrison Smith, a Texan who hosts on the far-right conspiracy site  Infowars, was shared widely. “I’m not gonna name names, but I was told by someone close to Charlie Kirk that Charlie thinks Israel will kill him if he turns against them,” Smith posted on Aug. 13. He stood by the comments on Wednesday.

Some of the posts appeared to potentially be from bot accounts that have proliferated on X in recent years as it relaxed moderation rules under the ownership of Elon Musk. But others were from real and influential voices, some of whom said Kirk’s recent comments about Jews and Israel may have made him a target.

“It took me about five seconds to find these and other examples of people using the Kirk shooting as an excuse for antisemitism,” tweeted Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism, as he shared two posts.

Many right-wing Jews venerated Kirk, who considered himself a defender of Jews and Israel. (Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his right-wing cabinet mourned Kirk as a friend of Israel.) Some on the Jewish right criticized those advancing antisemitic conspiracy theories about his murder, while appearing to indict anti-Israel voices in the process.

“The same people who called Charlie Kirk a ‘tool of the Jews,’ are now saying that the Mossad assassinated him,” tweeted Eyal Yakoby, an influencer who rose to prominence as a critic of antisemitism at his university. “These are sick people who will exploit a tragedy to pursue their own demonic agenda.”

“Charlie Kirk’s body isn’t even cold, and antisemitic conspiracy theorists are already blaming Mossad,” tweeted the pro-Israel influencer Eylon Levy.

Meanwhile, the situation has people across the political spectrum wondering whether Kirk’s assassination could be a “Reichstag moment,” a reference to the 1933 fire at the German parliament building that the Nazis used as a pretext to ramp up their repression of communists and ultimately their persecution and murder of Jews. (Historians have concluded that the fire was an inside job.)

“Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire,” tweeted a far-right personality named Matt Forney who boasts of having been banned from X before Musk’s takeover. “It is time for a complete crackdown on the left. Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under RICO. Every libtard commentator must be shut down.”

(Among those seeking historic parallels, some turned not to the Reichstag fire but to the assassination in 1930 of Horst Wessel, a member of the Nazi paramilitary wing. Nazis invoked him as a martyr and literally sang his praises as they rose to prominence and public office in the following years.)

Ezra Klein, The New York Times commentator, lamented Reichstag ambitions among some on the right in his column on Thursday. And Owen Jones, a British journalist with 1 million followers, shared Forney’s post as evidence of worrying signals within discourse on the right.

“The Reichstag fire was used by the Nazis to destroy all that remained of democracy, begin the liquidation of the left and legal persecution of the Jews,” he tweeted. “We don’t know who assassinated Charlie Kirk, but the Trumpian far right believe they have a perfect opportunity.”

Trump himself suggested as much in a video address Wednesday night, joining voices including Musk in blaming the shooting on the left and vowing a wide crackdown as a result.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”

Trump said his administration would find “those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

Kirk’s shooting joins a growing number of incidents of political violence in the United States that have targeted people across the political spectrum. Last month, two Democratic lawmakers were shot in Minnesota, one to death, allegedly by a right-wing extremist. In May, two Israeli embassy workers were shot to death in Washington, D.C.; a left-wing activist who allegedly shouted “Free Palestine” after the shooting has been charged with their murder.

In Utah, a manhunt was underway for Kirk’s killer. Police said they had released two people of interest without identifying anyone they believed in firing the single shot that felled him.

“Rising political violence — including those who exploit it to pit communities against one another — is among the most dire threats to our democracy and our safety,” Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, tweeted in response to Kirk’s murder. “This is utterly horrifying. And I’m terrified about what may follow.”