Antisemitism is no longer just an ideology — it’s an economic model
Regulation, not education, is needed to combat the new economy of hate fueled by AI
Photo-illustration by Thx4Stock
Days after Mohammed “Mo” Khan, a Temple University student, was suspended after an antisemitic altercation at a Philadelphia sports bar, he appeared on the podcast of Stew Peters.
Peters, a vocal Holocaust denier who has called for the mass deportation of Jews and refers to Zionists as a global financial cabal, bantered with Khan about “Jewish supremacy,” and then rewarded him with $100,000 in $JPROOF, a cryptocurrency launched by Peters in April that he marketed as a way to “liberate” financial systems from Rothschild-like Jewish banking influence.
The use of crypto reflects a deeper shift: Antisemitism is no longer just an ideology; it is also an economic model. We are not just confronting hateful speech; we are confronting a comprehensive digital and economic system. The only meaningful response is systemic as well: a new regulatory approach that targets the monetization mechanisms, technological enablers, and financial platforms that turn hate into profit.
The antisemitism of 2025 is no longer confined to fringe forums or swastikas sprayed on synagogue walls. It’s livestreamed, crowdsourced, and, for the first time, monetized. And crucially, it travels faster than our capacity to respond. Welcome to the new economy of hate.
Khan ended up raising tens of thousands of dollars online — both in the $100,000 worth of $JPROOF tokens offered by Peters, and also through GiveSendGo campaigns for his legal fees, relocation and mental health support, which drew support from conspiracy-driven communities.
This economy of hate does not stand alone. It is increasingly supported by a broader infrastructure of technology — not just social media platforms, but also AI systems, data profiling tools and decentralized financial technologies. Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming the next frontier in the war against antisemitism, enabling automated hate speech, deepfake conspiracies, personalized disinformation campaigns and algorithmic erasure of history.
Add to this the power of data analytics to microtarget Jewish individuals and communities, and we are looking at a multilayered threat landscape that goes far beyond what traditional watchdogs are tracking.
These watchdogs tend to focus on hate speech monitoring and extremist group activity on mainstream platforms. But in 2025, antisemitism is increasingly engineered through decentralized apps, gamified tokens and synthetic media (content that has been generated or manipulated with AI). These are domains that watchdogs have yet to fully penetrate.
This new antisemitic financial landscape dissolves borders, not only between online and offline life, but between Israel and the diaspora. What starts in an American bar ripples through Jewish communities worldwide. This fluidity is not a side effect; it is the defining feature of the age, and demands a new kind of vigilance.
The future of combatting antisemitism will not be decided in synagogues, universities or even community organizations. It is being shaped right now in rooms where technology policy is made — in the AI Act in Brussels, in the content moderation rollbacks in Washington and by the disturbing regulatory silence around crypto platforms.
The battleground is institutional: who sets the rules for what speech is monetized, what platforms remain unregulated and which forms of financial manipulation are allowed to operate unchecked. The silence around regulating hate-linked crypto assets and AI-driven propaganda systems is not neutral — it is permissive.
Traditionally, education has been upheld as the antidote to antisemitism. But in an online ecosystem where provocation is rewarded over reflection, every act of hate becomes a monetizable moment. As long as hate is not hidden but algorithmically amplified, education alone will remain siloed and insufficient.
We must pressure technology companies, policymakers, and civil society institutions to recognize this new reality, and to act accordingly: through regulation, platform accountability and investment in systemic digital literacy. Crucially, the responsibility also lies with Jewish communal leadership around the world. This moment demands more than statements and solidarity — it calls for a new strategic vision to protect Jewish life in the digital age.
This incident isn’t about one student. It’s a signal flare. The ecosystem of antisemitism has evolved, merging conspiracy, content, commerce and code into a seamless machine. We are no longer only fighting ignorance — we are fighting infrastructure.
Khan’s podcast visit should serve as a wake-up call for how we as a society confront the evolving ecosystem of antisemitism. The fight against hate in this age requires more than outrage — it demands a rethinking of our tools, our priorities and our educational frameworks.
Education remains necessary, but it must be recalibrated. Holocaust education, for instance, cannot simply recount history; it must be reframed as a moral compass for navigating online influence, understanding algorithmic bias and resisting the gamification of hate. Without that framing, even well-intentioned education risks being drowned in the noise.
We can no longer rely on traditional models of education to inoculate us against hate. Instead, we must evolve our educational frameworks to meet the realities of this moment — teaching how antisemitism mutates, how it markets itself and how it monetizes engagement.
Before we ask what Khan should have learned, we must ask what we are failing to teach, and more importantly, what systems we are failing to regulate.
The lesson here is not just about what Khan refused to learn — it’s about what the rest of us can no longer afford to ignore.
