Dennis Prager Condemns Candace Owens for Reviving Antisemitic Tropes

In a recent interview with Felice Friedson, conservative radio host and PragerU co-founder Dennis Prager issued an unusually direct rebuke of right-wing commentator Candace Owens, accusing her of reviving classic antisemitic tropes — particularly conspiracy theories about the Talmud, Jewish culpability for the slave trade, and blood libel-style insinuations about Jewish violence.

Prager condemned Owens’ claims that so-called “Talmudic Jews” are evil and “think we are animals, that they have a right to own us, make us worship them, lie to us, sue us, take everything we have and deceive us.” He criticized her description of religious Jews as encouraging Jews to be “contract lords.”

The rebuke builds on a 15-page open letter Prager sent Owens in September 2024 — later published publicly. In that letter, Prager highlighted a pattern of allegations casting Jews and Israel as uniquely sinister forces in global affairs, paired with claims drawn from historically discredited anti-Jewish polemics.

Prager, who studied in yeshiva for 14 years, countered that he never encountered such teachings in Jewish education and argued the only context in which he has heard those notions is in materials designed “to create hatred of Jews.” He emphasized that the Talmud contains millions of words of legal discussion across centuries, and cherry-picked “quotes” are often mistranslations, stripped of context, or outright fabrication.

In the interview, Prager addressed Owens’ use of “Der Talmudjude,” a 19th-century antisemitic book by August Rohling, which he noted has been exposed for unreliable scholarship and fabricated citations. He also condemned Owens for encouraging Black Americans to direct their anger away from white Americans toward Jews, whom she claims were responsible for the transatlantic slave trade. Prager pointed to scholarly rebuttals and historical organizations that reject attempts to portray Jews as disproportionately responsible for slavery.

Beyond factual disputes, Prager argued the intent is incendiary: resurrecting centuries-old accusations to stoke contemporary animus against “modern-day Jews” while ignoring Jewish involvement in the civil-rights struggle. He rejected Owens’ repeated assertion that Israel was founded by “Frankists,” a fringe movement associated with Jacob Frank, and instead asserted modern Zionism emerged from centuries of Jewish attachment to the land and historic vulnerability without a state, culminating in the Holocaust.

Most explosively, Prager accused Owens of echoing blood libel narratives — allegations that Jews murder Christians for ritual purposes. He noted she promoted or lent credibility to claims about Christian disappearances tied to infamous episodes like the Damascus Affair of 1840 and the Tiszaeszlár blood libel of 1882, describing such insinuations as among Europe’s most dangerous anti-Jewish myths.

In the interview, Prager extended his critique to Owens’ broader framing of Israel as uniquely “demonic,” arguing her standards single out the Jewish state for moral condemnation while giving comparatively little attention to atrocities by other actors and regimes. While stopping short of labeling Owens personally motivated by hatred of Jews “just for being Jews,” he noted her messaging is “leading many of her followers” toward viewing Jews as manipulative puppet-masters, particularly in the United States.

Prager described his attempt to resolve the conflict privately first, stating Owens initially replied appreciatively but did not provide a substantive response after promising one. His warnings come amid rising tensions on the right over whether figures are amplifying extremists or normalizing anti-Jewish narratives.