The Canary is Long Dead: Why Antisemitism Signals Societal Collapse

Antisemitism doesn’t just foreshadow decline—it drives it. Societies that tolerate this hatred lose their grip on truth, reason, and the very foundations that sustain them.

For years, people have called antisemitism “the canary in the coal mine.” To me, this always seemed to imply that the world should care about hatred of the Jews because those who come for the Jews will eventually come for everyone else. There are, obviously, a number of problems with this idea.

First, it’s offensive. The idea that people would care about racism, antisemitism or any other form of hatred and bigotry if it was self-serving is not the way to prove this is a moral cause. Jews are human beings and are just as deserving of respect, human rights and to be free of ill-treatment as anyone else. To suggest that this cause is only worthy of attention if it will directly affect the non-Jewish observer is shameful.

The worst part about this framing is not even the moral failing or fact that the idiom seems to have become lost to time – how many young people know why canaries would have been in coal mines in the first place? 

This framing is terrible because it is ultimately a recipe for failure. By focusing on the effects of antisemitism it misses the crucial reality that antisemitism is itself the poison that destroys societies.

Antisemitism is the Collapse of Reason

Antisemitism is often treated as a subset of racism or xenophobia, but this is a mischaracterization. It is not merely a form of prejudice; it is an ideological disorder—one that erodes a society’s ability to reason, to think critically, and ultimately, to govern itself. Unlike most hatreds, which target an identifiable enemy for real or imagined grievances, antisemitism is unique in its contradictions. It constructs the Jew as simultaneously powerless and omnipotent, both the corrupt capitalist and the revolutionary communist, the eternal outsider and the privileged elite.

These contradictions are not incidental; they are the essence of antisemitism. To hold antisemitic beliefs is to engage in cognitive dissonance so extreme that it ultimately undermines rational thought itself. If one accepts these contradictions as truth, then no logic, no evidence, and no historical reality can hold firm.

This is why antisemitism has always been more than a social ill. It serves as a direct attack on the very foundations of knowledge and truth.

Historical Precedents: Antisemitism and Civilizational Decline

History repeatedly demonstrates that societies that embrace antisemitism suffer consequences far beyond their Jewish populations. The most obvious modern example remains Nazi Germany, where antisemitic ideology overrode strategic interests to the point of direct self-destruction and harm. The Nazis diverted crucial wartime resources to transport and exterminate Jews, prioritizing ideological delusions over military pragmatism. Their obsession with a fictitious Jewish conspiracy contributed to their ultimate self-destruction. To be clear, I am not lamenting the fact that the Nazis were defeated and their ideology (for a time) was shown for what it is—built on baseless hatred, riddled with absurdity, and ultimately destructive to both its victims and its adherents. But it must be pointed out that the fruits of antisemitism are just as harmful to its proponents as to its victims.

The pattern is not limited to the Nazi regime. Wherever antisemitism has flourished, so too has intellectual and cultural decay. When societies allow antisemitic tropes to dominate public discourse, they create an environment where truth becomes secondary to ideology. Words lose their meaning, facts become optional, and governance is dictated by paranoia rather than reality.

We see echoes of this today. The internet has given new life to medieval antisemitic fabrications, spread by influential figures with no regard for evidence. Entire volumes of Jewish law such as the Talmud—and even the Torah itself— freely available online, are misrepresented through fabricated quotations. The same society that boasts of instant access to knowledge now rewards those who reject it in favor of easy conspiracies.

The Real Stakes: Truth or Delusion

So is antisemitism a symptom of civilizational decline, or its cause? The historical record suggests it is both. Societies that descend into chaos, paranoia, and economic failure often scapegoat Jews as an outlet for their frustrations. But antisemitism is not merely a consequence of decay—it can act as the critical mass needed for irrationality and dysfunctional behaviour to become self-sustaining. A civilization that embraces antisemitism abandons reason in favor of conspiracy, corrupts justice with irrational prejudice, and ultimately dismantles the very institutions that sustain it. Whether decline breeds antisemitism or antisemitism breeds decline, history makes one truth inescapable: no society that has indulged this hatred has ever thrived.

As such, the persistence of antisemitism is not merely a Jewish problem; it is a test of whether society is willing to uphold reason itself. A world that embraces antisemitism is a world that embraces falsehood. And a civilization that prefers falsehood over truth cannot sustain itself indefinitely.

And so we have to choose between the two paths before us. Do we commit ourselves to truth, reason, and intellectual integrity, or do we allow our society to slowly disintegrate as we jettison logic, shared meaning and the embrace of irrationality?

The time for abstraction and metaphor is over. Antisemitism is not a distant warning. It is a present reality, and its consequences are unfolding in real time.

Societies that have succumbed to this disease before have not survived it. If we fail to confront it now, neither will ours.

Follow me on X (@Itssameskenasi) for more on antisemitism, Jewish history, and why this fight matters.