"Jews will not replace us!": Antisemitism, Interbreeding and Immigration in Historical Context

White nationalist cries of "Jews will not replace us!" and, "You will not replace us!," at the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, rally were frequently discussed but rarely understood.¹ Taken as a sign of general hostility toward Jews or the belief that Jews were vaguely threatening, the deeper meaning of the "replacement" theme in relation to antisemitism has often been missed. In this article, I locate "Jews will not replace us" in the broader historical context of a long-lasting antisemitic narrative. This fear of a Jewish plan for world domination had two major themes. First, Jews would encourage massive non-white immigration from inferior races that would outbreed and eventually replace whites. Second, they would promote racial interbreeding that would destroy whites' supposed natural advantages in intelligence and character, hastening replacement through "mongrelization." These aims would be accomplished through Jewish-directed communism by promoting a "hoax" of racial equality.

Analysis of the antisemitic themes in "replacement" discourse is complicated by shifts and ambiguities in the meaning of "you" and "us" in "You will not replace us." For contemporary white nationalists, "you" may refer to "global liberal elites" or "international bankers" or government. For those firmly devoted to Nazi ideology, all three categories are either Jews or liberals controlled by and brainwashed by Jews, real and imaginary. In earlier versions of the replacement idea, "you" might refer to Bolsheviks or communists, also said to be Jews. Similarly, the "us" for the Charlottesville organizers meant anyone of white European descent, with Russians specifically included, whereas nativists in the early 1900s feared replacement of the more narrowly conceived Nordic race.²

The use of the term "replacement" by contemporary ethno-nationalists, often used interchangeably with "white genocide," is generally traced to the "great replacement" concept of modern European demographics popularized in 2011 by French philosopher Renaud Camus³ He argued that immigration from North Africa and the Middle East to France would inevitably result in the end of French culture and the "French People." For many readers, Camus's dystopian analysis was a revival of the themes of The Camp of the Saints, Jean Raspail's 1973 apocalyptic novel of Europe overwhelmed by hordes of Third World migrants who utterly destroy white European civilization. Neither book blamed the Jews, and so could appeal...