About

Why this exists

When an ‘antisemitic incident’ is reported, it is almost always covered as fact. Less often covered is what happens when the stories turn out to be fabricated, as they often are — the initial reporting stays online, the correction appears lower down, some notable outlets even refuse to issue corrections or updates, and the record reads as though the incident happened. This leads to the false understanding that antisemitism is more prevalent than it actually is, playing into the Israeli and Zionist narratives about antisemitism and its supposed omnipresence.

This is an incomplete compiled list of known cases of ‘antisemitic incidents’ in mostly Western countries where the original claim was later refuted, revealed to be faked or found to be self-inflicted. Each entry records the original claim, the later correction or reveal, and links to both the reporting that carried the original claim and the reporting that corrected it, if available. The record is not comprehensive, but it is a start.

What is a fake or self-inflicted antisemitism

An antisemitic incident is an event in which a person, institution, or community is targeted — by assault, vandalism, threat, harassment or an act of hostility in general — because they are Jewish, presumed to be Jewish, or associated with Judaism. It includes physical attacks, property damage, written or verbal threats, or epithets directed at Jewish targets.

This website does not propose or coin its own definition or understanding of antisemitism, but rather uses a general understanding of it among the public, particularly in western countries. It does not use extremely Israel-oriented politically motivated definitions like the IHRA or ADL definitions that primarily present anti-Israel speech as antisemitic. We recognize that the so-called “public general understanding of antisemitism” can be equally political and similarly used as a tool to bolster Zionism and Israel and to persecute anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists. This record exists because of that fact.

A fake or self-inflicted antisemitic incident is an event that was reported, publicised, known, or treated as an antisemitic attack but was later shown — by the reporting itself, another reporting, an investigation, or a public discovery of discrepancy in fact of the incident or its reporting — to fall into one of three categories:

• Fabricated — the incident did not occur entirely or did not occur as described by the alleged ‘victim’ or the report(s). The person who reported or publicised it invented it, either entirely or in part
• Self-inflicted — the harm may be real or faked, but the incident is reported as an antisemitic attack when it was caused from within the Jewish community. It takes two forms: harm caused by the reporting person against themselves, and harm caused by one member of the Jewish community against another. In the second form, the incident may be reported, presumed, or treated as an anti-Jewish attack, and the harmed person may or may not have been involved in that framing. Typical forms are self-inflicted injury, planting one's own graffiti, or sending threats to oneself; the same acts directed at another member of the community — a person, a group, or a place associated with it — fall in the same way. In every case, the act was intended to be taken, or was taken, presumed or treated as an antisemitic attack.
• Misattributed — something did happen, but it was not an antisemitic attack. The reporting attached an antisemitic motive or perpetrator that was later shown to be wrong.

Who compiled the data

A small amount of data was first compiled for the proof of concept by Sid, who is the sole administrator, developer and maintainer of this site and this project. But currently the data is being continuously expanded by new submissions made by people on the web. Each submission is reviewed and edited by the administrator before addition to the database.

Download the raw data

The full record is available in two formats. Queryable SQLite database format, and a JSON export of the same data.

Formatting notes

A few optional syntaxes are used inside incident summary fields for formatting. They are stored as plain text that the index page interprets as formatting at render time. Everything else is literal text. Formatting notes are not necessary to use for submission of new records, they are completely optional.

Inline links

[text|url] — renders as a normal hyperlink. For example, [Nakba|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba] becomes a hyperlink reading “Nakba” that can be clicked to visit its Wikipedia page.

Collapsible asides

[{note}] — renders as a small expandable marker. Use it for a short contextual note that would interrupt the summary if written inline. For example, [{Each German state except Bremen has its own antisemitism commissioner.}] renders as a small … marker that expands on click, and collapses again on a second click.

Inline links within Collapsible asides

[{normal text[clickable url text|url] }] — renders as a small expandable marker with text including a hyperlink inside it.

What is not markup

There is no syntax to format as bold, italics, headings, or lists inside summary fields. These three are the only formatting available. There is no formatting available at all for title and source fields. They are stored as literal text and rendered as such.

Submitting a record or correction

You can submit a new record or submit a correction to an existing one using the submission→ or correction→ page.

Using the submission page

You can find the link to the submission page through the Menu button on the main page.

Incident

You must fill in all the required fields in there such as Date of the incident or reporting. Country where the incident happened, Summary of the original claim, Summary of the later reveal, correction or refutation. Adding the Short title is optional.

Sources

Each incident submitted must be accompanied by one or more sources of the original claim and later refutation/reveal if both available. If source for original claims is missing but the source that refutes the claim exists and hints to there being an original claim, then that is also permissible.

Each source card contains URL, Outlet, Link type, and Headline. When URL is pasted into the URL input box, within a few seconds, the Outlet and Headline will attempt to fill in automatically. If it fails, the failure is shown and the submitter is asked to manually type or paste the Outlet and/or Headline.

Using the correction page

You can find the link to the correction page in the same place as the link to the submission page. Additionally, you can also go to the correction page through the message “Notice an issue with above record? Submit a correction” at the bottom of every record in the main page. This auto-selects the record to be corrected.

In the correction page, a record must be selected/loaded via its SN.. when loaded, all information in that record's incident and sources, appear in the correction page ‘as-it-is’ on the site. You can make changes to any part of the record as required. There is a box to describe the changes made, after which the correction can be submitted.

If the automatic submission of a new record or a correction fails

Both forms send submissions to me automatically. If that fails (for example, you're offline or the server is temporarily unavailable), the page shows three fallback options so nothing is lost:

• Copy to clipboard — copies the submission link so you can paste it into any email or message me yourself.
• Mail manually to admin — opens your mail app with the link already in the message body, addressed to me.
• Copy & open X DM — copies the link and opens a direct message to me on X (twitter). On mobile, the message may be pre-filled; on desktop, paste it with Ctrl/Cmd+V.

In all cases the link is very long — please send it whole, without breaks. Nothing is added to the record automatically; I review, verify, correct, and editorialize each submission or correction before it goes in.