Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

‘#Cohencidence’ Hashtag Trends on Twitter Thanks to David Duke, Assorted Jew Haters

The Jew hatred that has become such a striking feature of the internet made its first major breakthrough in early June. That was when users realized that neo-Nazis had developed a way to mark the presence of Jews on social media by enclosing their names in a set of triple parentheses, also known as the echo.

More recently, the ‘Cohencidence’ hashtag has been trending: It helps identify instances of Jewish power and root them in the notion that Jews work together, surreptitiously and with diabolical cleverness, to undermine the broader society in which they live.

David Duke has embraced the term with enthusiasm. The white supremacist and candidate for United States Senate in Louisiana picks out innocuous stories from the web and labels them a #Cohencidence.

Back in May, he used the hashtag to insinuate that former British prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair were part of a Jewish plot, citing news report that identified both as friends of Israel and the Jewish community.

He also saw sinister motives behind an October report that the Federal Bureau of Investigation summoned the help of Israeli hackers to break the encryption on a cell phone.

Duke’s hashtag has caught on, spreading to other parts of the ‘alt-right’ section of the Twittersphere. Here a are a few examples:

As the hashtag has ricocheted around Twitter, some have tried to hit back, making fun of Duke and his compatriots for their bigoted rantings.

One of those attempts comes from the account @DovidDuke, which features Duke’s likeness photoshopped with a streimel (Orthodox Jewish hat) on head and the tagline, “a mohel with a light touch” — a reference to ritual circumcision. Here are a couple of posts from the handle.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.