The Oldest Virus: Jewish Persecution from the Black Death to Belgium Today

The video above was made with artificial intelligence. In less than one minute, it tries to show something that has lasted for more than two thousand years: the persecution of Jews throughout history. It is not a full documentary, and it cannot capture every country, every massacre, every law, every exile, or every humiliation. But it does something powerful: it compresses centuries of hatred into a short visual warning.

What we see in that video is not only history. It is a pattern. Again and again, Jews have been blamed when societies were afraid, angry, poor, sick, defeated, or confused. When plague came, Jews were accused of poisoning wells. When economies collapsed, Jews were accused of controlling money. When revolutions came, Jews were accused of causing them. When nations wanted purity, Jews were treated as contamination. The accusation changed from century to century, but the mechanism remained the same.

Antisemitism is often called “the oldest hatred,” but that phrase is too soft. Hatred of Jews behaves more like a virus. It mutates, spreads, hides, and returns in new forms. It moves from religion to politics, from rumor to propaganda, from the street to the internet. It infects people who want an easy enemy and a simple explanation for a complicated world.

This hatred is not literally part of anyone’s biological DNA. No person is born needing to hate Jews. But antisemitism can become part of a society’s cultural DNA: inherited through stories, jokes, sermons, conspiracy theories, political slogans, family prejudices, and online lies. Many people are not forced to catch this virus. They are happy to catch it, because it gives them someone to blame.

The history of Jewish persecution in Europe, including in Belgium, shows how dangerous this virus becomes when fear and hatred meet.