Introduction
E. Michael Jones (1948-) is a Traditionalist Catholic writer and ubiquitous podcaster who aims to defend traditional Catholic teachings and values from those he perceives as seeking to undermine them. At various times, such diverse groups as Protestants, urban planners and moviemakers have been the subjects of his ire. However, a longstanding obsession of Jones is the damage that he believes Jews are inflicting on the Catholic Church and Western civilization.
Ideology
E. Michael Jones is an antisemitic Traditionalist Catholic writer and podcaster who promotes the view that Jews are dedicated to propagating and perpetrating attacks on the Catholic Church, as well as moral standards, social stability and political order throughout the world. Jones's antisemitic writings are premised on the idea that Judaism is inherently treacherous and belligerent towards Christianity, and that Catholic doctrine obligates the faithful to oppose Judaism, regardless of the behavior or beliefs of individual Jews. Jones describes Jews as “outlaws and subversives [who use] religion as a cover for social revolution,” and claims that Judaism possesses “a particularly malignant spirit.” Jones also imagines the contemporary world and its social ills as having been shaped by Judaism, describing 21st-century civilization as “a Jewish world run on commercial principles.” He further associates this “Jewish modernity” with the perceived “evils” of abortion, same-sex marriage and pornography, which he has referred to as “Jewish sacraments.”
In the tradition of conspiracy theorists, Jones reaches for spurious connections to paint “the Jews” as inherently wicked and prone to colluding openly or secretly against other communities. He credits Jews with orchestrating world events as varied and disconnected from the Jewish experience as the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican (a.k.a. Vatican II). He also blames Jews for Bolshevism, Freemasonry and an alleged contemporary “Jewish takeover of American culture.”
Jones's contention that his beliefs have theological foundations may give him a degree of legitimacy among some Catholics who would otherwise dismiss his extremist conclusions. The Vatican and most mainstream Catholics have thoroughly repudiated antisemitism since Vatican II, but Jones continues to present himself as a defender of normative Catholic teachings.
Recently, Jones’s antisemitic beliefs have evolved from his long-held position that the Holocaust was a justified response to Jewish behavior to outright Holocaust denial. In May 2023, Jones wrote, “As some indication that truth was greater than anything the powerful could do to suppress it, the gas chamber myth fell apart during the Zuendel [sic] trials in Canada during the 1980s.” His forthcoming book, The Holocaust Narrative, is a lengthy exposition of these beliefs about the Holocaust.
Background: Jones’s Journey to Extremism
Jones grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia and began promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories after a tumultuous early adulthood. According to autobiographical sources, at age 20, Jones initially abandoned the Catholic faith of his upbringing but returned to Catholicism in 1973 while he was teaching English in rural Germany. It was during his time in Germany that Jones also became concerned with the loss of ethnic and religious traditions in the West. Upon his return to the United States, Jones earned a Ph.D. in American history and literature from Temple University and assumed a position as assistant professor of American Literature at St. Mary's College, a Catholic women's school in South Bend, Indiana. Jones was quickly fired because, he claims, of his outspoken opposition to abortion.
In 1981, Jones founded Fidelity magazine (now called Culture Wars) as a platform for Catholics who believed that “modernity” and the “liberal Church” were having a destructive impact upon popular culture and traditional religious communities. In his early books published by his own Fidelity Press imprint such as The Slaughter of Cities, Jones railed against what he viewed to be the disintegration of immigrant Catholic neighborhoods. He blamed a Protestant-WASP elite, and to a lesser extent Jews, for seeking to dominate Catholic populations and facilitate the decay of the spiritual and geographic foundations of their faith. In following years, Jones increasingly focused his claims on Jews as the main “foreign” population attempting to harm the wellbeing of Catholic communities and American culture more broadly. “’Tikkun Olam,’” Jones claimed, using a Jewish term that refers to “repairing the world,” “is the Jewish term for using the Jewish Revolutionary Spirit to wreck your culture.” In Libido Dominandi, Jones claims that Jews have used sexual liberation as a mechanism of political control, an idea to which he regularly returns in his weekly livestreams.
Extremist Affiliations
In his writings, Jones has claimed that his views on Jews are not based on racial theories, and that he is “anti-Jewish” but not “antisemitic.” He attempted to distinguish between these two ideas during an April 2023 podcast, claiming that antisemitism is purely “racial,” and claiming he holds no racial animus toward Jewish people. His hate-fueled rhetoric, however, makes any such distinction academic. (A previous version mistakenly stated that E. Michael Jones endorsed racial antisemitism.) He engages with a wide range of individuals both in the U.S. and abroad whose racism, antisemitism and xenophobia are unmistakable. Jones's book, The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit, cites such biased sources as Holocaust denier Michael A. Hoffman II and antisemitic ideologue Professor Kevin MacDonald. Jones also regularly associates with extremists around the world, appearing as a guest on the podcasts of such fringe figures as the Irish conspiracy theorist Gemma O’Doherty, and joining the excommunicated, antisemitic Englishman Bishop Richard Williamson on another show. Jones's extremist associations, and the support he enjoys among the radical fringe, underscore his hateful message.