Israel
Antisemitic ‘This was promised to me 3,000 years ago’ meme goes viral
The AI-generated memes show Orthodox Jews in absurd settings, trivialising the Jewish attachment to Israel
August 22, 2025 15:27
The AI-generated memes show Orthodox Jews in absurd settings, trivialising the Jewish attachment to Israel
August 22, 2025 15:27A new meme stereotyping Jews as delusional and greedy for claiming Israel as their homeland has gone viral.
The meme comprises short AI-generated clips showing strictly Orthodox Jewish men in a variety of settings approaching people and claiming that an item was "promised to me 3,000 years ago", ridiculing the Jewish concept of the “Promised Land”.
Many of the videos are set to the popular Jewish folk song “Hava Nagila”, and pour scorn on the notion that Israel is the Jewish people’s Promised Land by depicting absurd and far-fetched scenarios, such as Jewish people attempting to lay claim to celestial bodies.
Some of the posts show Jews trying to claim sandwiches and garden chairs, while others are darker, and even appear to invoke and make light of the Holocaust in some cases.
One meme posted on an Instagram account with 1.5 million followers features a Jewish person stating: “I was promised six million followers on TikTok 3,000 years ago”, in an apparent reference to the Jewish death toll during the Shoah.
Commenting on the viral trend, Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the founder of online database CyberWell, which aims to combat antisemitism on the internet, said it highlighted the challenge social media platforms face as AI tools make it “increasingly difficult to monitor and control harmful content at scale”.
“Relying on users to report hate has proven to be a complete failure, contributing to waves of real-world violence amplified by algorithms that thrive on outrage. Now, antisemites and extremists are exploiting AI tools to spread and intensify hate,” Cohen Montemayor told the Jerusalem Post.
“If social media platforms do not invest in stronger and faster response mechanisms, similar to efforts made to combat revenge porn, this creative abuse of AI will continue to reach billions.
“In the era of AI, slow and reactive trust and safety enforcement and policy updates are no longer acceptable.”
To get more Israel news, click here to sign up for our free Israel Briefing newsletter.