The Protocols of the Elders of Zion main subject Jewish conspiracy theory
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Протоколы сионских мудрецов) or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax was plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.
Distillations of the work were assigned by some German teachers, as if factual, to be read by German schoolchildren after the Nazis came to power in 1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent by the British newspaper The Times in 1921 and the German Frankfurter Zeitung in 1924. It remains widely available in numerous languages, in print and on the Internet, and continues to be presented by antisemitic groups as a genuine document. It has been described as "probably the most influential work of antisemitism ever written".Structure and content
The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late-19th-century meeting attended by world Jewish leaders, the "Elders of Zion", who are conspiring to take over the world. The forgery places in the mouths of the Jewish leaders a variety of plans, most of which derive from older antisemitic canards. For example, the Protocols includes plans to subvert the morals of the non-Jewish world, plans for Jewish bankers to control the world's economies, plans for Jewish control of the press, and – ultimately – plans for the destruction of civilization. The document consists of 24 "protocols", which have been analyzed by Steven Jacobs and Mark Weitzman, who documented several recurrent themes that appear repeatedly in the 24 protocols, as shown in the following table:Contemporary conspiracy theories
The Protocols continue to be widely available around the world, particularly on the Internet.
The Protocols is widely considered influential in the development of other conspiracy theories, and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy literature. Notions derived from the Protocols include claims that the "Jews" depicted in the Protocols are a cover for the Illuminati, Freemasons, the Priory of Sion or, in the opinion of David Icke, "extra-dimensional entities". In his book And the truth shall set you free (1995), Icke asserted that the Protocols are genuine and accurate.