TEL AVIV, Israel — CyberWell, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online antisemitism and a trusted partner of Meta, TikTok, and YouTube, has released new research documenting the widespread use of the phrase “son of a Jew” as an antisemitic slur across Arabic language social media platforms.
According to the report, the phrase is frequently used not only against Jews, but also against political opponents, public figures, and individuals perceived as supporting Jews or Israel. Researchers found that the expression is commonly employed to portray Jewish identity as synonymous with betrayal, corruption, cowardice, or moral inferiority.
CyberWell said the findings highlight how antisemitism can become embedded within everyday language and digital culture, making it more difficult for automated moderation systems to detect and remove harmful content.
The nonprofit, which monitors online antisemitism using artificial intelligence and human analysis, submitted alerts about the trend to major social media platforms and recommended stronger Arabic-language moderation and increased investment in regional expertise.
According to CyberWell’s analysis, the terms “Jew” and “son of a Jew” often function in Arabic online discourse not as neutral descriptors but as derogatory expressions rooted in longstanding antisemitic stereotypes.
Researchers found that Jewish identity is frequently weaponized as a negative label to imply greed, corruption, dishonesty or disloyalty.
The report noted that a significant percentage of the posts analyzed included direct calls for violence.
CyberWell identified documented examples dating back to 2014 in which Jewish identity was explicitly used as a form of online abuse.
The organization reported that the phrase “son of a Jew” gained increased visibility during the 2014 Gaza conflict after Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida used it as an insult in a public statement.
According to CyberWell, the phrase subsequently spread widely across social media platforms and evolved into a recurring form of online antisemitic abuse that continues to circulate more than a decade later.
Researchers identified three principal categories in which the phrase appears online.
The first category involved direct insults in which Jewish identity itself was portrayed as shameful or inferior. In some cases, these posts included hostile imagery targeting Jewish individuals or Jewish symbols.
The second category involved repeated use of the phrase attributed to Abu Obaida: “You threaten us with what we await, you son of a Jew.” CyberWell found that the slogan now frequently appears detached from its original context and is used as a generalized insult.
The third category involved boycott activism. Researchers found that individuals who declined to participate in boycott campaigns were sometimes targeted with the slur, allowing antisemitic language to circulate under the broader umbrella of political advocacy.
“The significance of this trend is not simply that people are using an offensive phrase,” said CyberWell Founder and Chief Executive Officer Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor.
“The phrase works because it treats Jewish identity itself as an insult. Whether directed at Jews, political rivals, or people perceived as supporting Jews, the message is the same: being associated with Jews is something shameful, corrupt, or worthy of contempt. That is how antisemitism becomes normalized within everyday language and digital culture.”
CyberWell also examined how major technology companies responded after receiving reports concerning the content.
TikTok recorded the highest removal rate, removing 80 percent of flagged content. The figure is broadly consistent with the platform’s overall antisemitic content removal rate of 88.8 percent documented in CyberWell’s 2025 Annual Report.
Meta removed 59 percent of the content identified within the dataset. According to CyberWell, Meta removed all content containing explicit violent rhetoric.
X demonstrated the widest enforcement gap. CyberWell reported that none of the flagged content was removed from the platform, indicating a 0% removal rate. Only 15 percent of posts were subject to visibility restrictions.
Montemayor said the findings demonstrate the limitations of relying exclusively on automated moderation technologies.
“Identity-based slurs become more difficult to address when they are embedded within political discourse, social movements, and online slang,” she said.
“As such, language becomes normalized, it spreads more widely while avoiding detection by moderation systems that focus primarily on explicit hate speech.”
She added that effective moderation requires both technological tools and human expertise.
“This is precisely why contextual expertise matters,” Montemayor said. “Many of these posts do not contain explicit threats or universally recognized slurs. Without organizations that understand regional language, cultural references, and evolving hate narratives, harmful content can remain online for years undetected and become embedded into digital and real-world culture.”
CyberWell recommended that social media companies invest more heavily in Arabic-language moderation, strengthen partnerships with organizations specializing in online hate, and expand their regional linguistic expertise.
Founded as an independent nonprofit organization, CyberWell monitors social media content in English and Arabic using the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. Verified examples of antisemitic content are cataloged in what the organization describes as the world’s first open database of antisemitic social media posts.
As online hate continues to evolve, CyberWell researchers argue that understanding local language, cultural context, and emerging narratives will remain essential to preventing antisemitism from becoming normalized across digital platforms.
