Introduction

In the months following October 7, antisemitism surged across digital platforms with a speed and uniformity unlike anything seen in the modern era. Hostility toward Jews—once localized by geography, culture, or ideology—now travels through algorithms, virality incentives, and emotionally charged meme-cultures that operate at unprecedented scale.
This essay asks a difficult but necessary question:
Is digital antisemitic incitement beginning to function like a mobilization architecture—something structurally similar, though not historically identical, to early-stage systems that enabled violence against Jews in the past?
This is not a claim of equivalence, nor an invocation of Holocaust imagery for effect. It is an inquiry into pattern recognition: evaluating whether digital systems are exhibiting functional components historically associated with classification, dehumanization, and distributed aggression.
Our concern is not what history “is repeating,” but how new technologies may be creating novel pathways toward old dangers.

1. What Is Digital Incitement Infrastructure?

Digital Incitement Infrastructure (DII) refers to the layered, interconnected ecosystem through which antisemitism is produced, amplified, and normalized across online platforms. DII is not centrally coordinated.
It emerges from:

• platform incentives

• algorithmic ranking

• meme-driven culture

• ideological networks

• synthetic AI personas

• swarm harassment

• disinformation pipelines

DII has five major components.

1.1 Algorithmic Amplification
Algorithms reward:

• heightened emotion

• outrage

• conflict

• identity-based narratives

Antisemitic tropes flourish because they generate engagement. Platforms don’t “intend” this, but their economic architecture creates a structural bias toward incendiary content.

1.2 Memetic Incitement
Memes act as compressed ideology:

• ironic, humorous, deniable

• emotionally sticky

• endlessly shareable

• detached from historical reality

This makes them powerful carriers of antisemitic narratives—especially among younger audiences.

1.3 Digital Swarm Dynamics
Swarming (dogpiling) is the online successor to the street mob.
Targets—often visibly Jewish accounts—face:

• coordinated harassment

• doxxing

• reputational attacks

• demands for deplatforming

This distributed aggression mirrors early-stage social intimidation historically used to isolate Jews prior to violence.

1.4 Narrative Networks & Influence Operations
Extremists, foreign actors, and ideological movements exploit antisemitism to destabilize societies. They coordinate:

• hashtag hijacking

• bot amplification

• fabricated evidence

• synthetic news articles

• cross-platform narrative laundering

Digital ecosystems make these operations far more efficient.

1.5 AI-Driven Hostility
AI tools can now generate:

• memes

• videos

• synthetic personas

• deepfake voices

• fabricated quotes

This creates the illusion of mass consensus—a psychological weapon.

2. Why Ask the “Virtual Einsatzgruppen?” Question?
Again, this is not a historical equivalence.
It is a structural inquiry.
Genocide scholarship identifies repeated patterns that precede violence:

1. classification

2. dehumanization

3. social isolation

4. diffusion of responsibility

5. normalization of hostility

6. escalation

7. opportunistic participation

Digital systems now perform many of these functions—algorithmically, automatically, and at scale.
The question forces us to examine the risk before it becomes irreversible.

3. The Supersessionist Substrate
Antisemitism spreads easily online because digital narratives activate deep cultural memory.
Supersessionism—the belief that Judaism is obsolete or replaced—remains a powerful unconscious framework shaping Western and Middle Eastern imaginaries.
Even when religious theology fades, the inherited narrative remains:

• Jews as cosmic obstacles

• Jews as spiritually deficient

• Jews as perpetual opposition

• Jews as divinely rejected

• Jews as archetypal villains

This substrate accelerates digital hate because it provides instant interpretive meaning to antisemitic content.

4. The Tesseract Model of Digital Antisemitism
Antisemitism is not a simple prejudice. It is a multidimensional system spanning:

• historical-mythic narratives

• political identity

• psychological projection

• technological accelerants

Digital platforms collapse these four dimensions into a single high-velocity channel—allowing memes, conspiracy theories, and rage cycles to mutate faster than traditional social institutions can respond.

5. Ethical and Security Implications
Digital antisemitism is not “just online.”
It has measurable impacts:

• increased fear and trauma

• heightened social isolation

• risk of stochastic terrorism

• radicalization of youth

• targeting of Jewish journalists, students, and creators

• social legitimization of harassment

• erosion of democratic norms

Platforms bear responsibility not for intent but predictable outcomes.

6. Counter-Measures & Digital Resilience
A real solution requires multi-level intervention:
• Platform transparency
Expose ranking systems, audit algorithms.
• Early-warning systems
Detect coordinated harassment and extremist pipelines.
• Digital literacy
Teach cognitive immunity to manipulation.
• Trauma-informed care
Support those targeted by digital hate swarms.
• Cross-platform coordination
Hate travels across ecosystems; defenses must too.
• Community digital defense teams
Local digital security is as important as physical protection.
• Counter-narratives
Authentic stories—not slogans—deflate dehumanization.

Conclusion
History does not repeat in identical form.
But mechanisms repeat.
Digital systems now enable hostility at a speed and reach impossible in the pre-internet era. Recognizing the emerging patterns is not alarmist. It is responsible.
The question—Are we witnessing the early architecture of something structurally analogous to a “virtual Einsatzgruppen”?—is meant to provoke vigilance, not panic.
The Jewish people have endured every iteration of hatred history has offered.
The digital iteration demands a new kind of preparedness.
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17604830