Jewish history and antisemitism in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia · roots, changes and belonging
A prejudice taught through state institutions
The modern Saudi account is chiefly about how official education represented Jews, rather than a large local Jewish community. Earlier textbook reviews documented religious demonization and collective-enemy language. European conspiracy claims added a different layer, while the Arab–Israeli conflict supplied a modern political setting. State-approved lessons could give these ideas authority for new generations. Later textbook revisions removed substantial hostile content, showing that the transmission depended on changeable institutional choices.
- IMPACT-se · curriculum research — Saudi schoolbooks: documented anti-Jewish passages in earlier editions
- IMPACT-se · curriculum research — The 2023–2024 Saudi textbook review and removal of hostile content
- United States Commission on International Religious Freedom — Saudi Arabia, August 2024: textbook reforms and remaining religious intolerance
Late 1990s–2008 reviews
The schoolbook gives prejudice an official voice
Earlier Saudi textbooks made hostile collective claims about Jews part of formal learning.
A child learns a collective category
Reviews of earlier Saudi schoolbooks documented portrayals of Jews as enemies and morally suspect. The problem was the transfer from selected religious stories to claims about Jews as a people. A student could be taught to judge a group before meeting any of its members.
Religious language acquires state authority
A textbook is not merely one preacher’s opinion. When approved for schools, its lessons carry institutional authority and are repeatedly taught. Hostile language could therefore travel through a structured national system. That mechanism matters more than assuming every teacher or student accepted every passage.
Belief and demonization differ
A religion can disagree with another faith’s teachings without portraying its followers as a dangerous collective enemy. The reviewed passages crossed that distinction where they assigned hostile characteristics to Jews as a group. Examining the actual wording explains what made the teaching antisemitic.
Historical sources
Twentieth century
A modern state can reuse an older accusation
Religious teaching and regional politics operated together through institutions with contemporary power.
The setting is a modern kingdom
Saudi Arabia was established in 1932. Its modern institutions inherited religious traditions but made their own choices about public teaching. The kingdom should not be treated as if it were identical to every earlier society in Arabia. The state’s responsibility lies in what it selected, endorsed and taught.
The conflict supplies a new frame
The Arab–Israeli conflict gave anti-Jewish representations a contemporary political setting. Claims about Israel could be extended to Jews everywhere. That extension obscured differences between a government, its citizens and Jewish people in other countries. It transformed a specific conflict into collective blame.
Authority makes repetition powerful
When the same enemy image appears across lessons, it can become an apparently ordinary fact. Students are offered a ready explanation for future events. This is an interpretation of how institutional teaching can transmit prejudice; the textbook record does not measure each student’s beliefs or later conduct.
Historical sources
Late twentieth–early twenty-first century
A European forgery enters another language
Conspiracy supplied a modern hidden-power story alongside older religious hostility.
The Protocols claim
Earlier curriculum research documented references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion within hostile representations of Jews. The text originated as a European fabrication, not an Islamic revelation or an authentic record. Its movement across languages shows how a local political setting can borrow an international antisemitic script.
The forgery’s false promise
The Protocols claimed to expose a Jewish plan controlling governments, media and finance. Its supposed meetings never occurred, and parts were plagiarized from unrelated writing. The story made contradictory events look like one secret project. Publication or classroom repetition could not turn the forgery into evidence.
The layers reinforce each other
A religious enemy image and a global-control conspiracy make different claims. Combined, they can portray Jews as both inherently hostile and secretly powerful. Keeping the layers distinct explains their origins: the modern conspiracy was borrowed, while its institutional adoption was a decision in the Saudi setting.
Historical sources
2023–2024 review
The lesson changes because someone rewrites it
Recent reviews found significant removals of hostile content, alongside continuing religious intolerance.
A documented revision
The 2023–2024 textbook review reported further removal of hostile portrayals and material that had appeared in earlier editions. These changes matter because the same formal school system that transmitted prejudice can revise its content. The earlier passages should not be presented as if they were necessarily still being taught unchanged.
What remained in 2024
USCIRF’s August 2024 assessment noted progress while identifying remaining intolerant religious claims, including descriptions of other faiths as false. Its account concerned specific teaching and policy conditions. It did not establish that every Saudi person held an antisemitic view or that all problems had been resolved.
Reform changes a channel, not every belief
Removing a passage reduces one official route through which hostility can be learned. It does not measure how quickly earlier beliefs disappear from families or wider society. The meaningful historical change is institutional: a state can withdraw authority from an accusation it once helped repeat.
Historical sources
These chapters explain selected turning points in a longer history. Borders and regimes change; dates may overlap. The paintings are interpretive illustrations. Historical sources are available beneath the story, and links to the Tree connect ideas without claiming an inevitable chain of events.
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