Nation of Islam (NOI)

Nation of Islam (NOI) is a Black nationalist organization and designated hate group founded in 1930 by notorious antisemite Elijah Muhammad.

NOI is an unabashedly antisemitic, homophobic, and anti-white movement. The movement’s Jew-hatred runs deep, seeing its primary enemy as the “evil Jew” who controls the levers of global power. NOI’s bigoted 86-year-old leader Louis Farrakhan is one of the most infamous antisemites in America, responsible for vile, open expressions of Jew-hatred.

Nominated for StopAntisemitism’s 2019 antisemite of the year, Farrakhan routinely references Rothchild conspiracies and refers to Jews as satanic imposters, a notion that is similarly fundamental to the Black Hebrew Israelites, whose members maintain that they are the real Jews. Farrakhan helped coin the antisemitic phrase “synagogue of Satan,” which originated in the New Testament, by frequently using it in his sermons to refer to Jewish people. Farrakhan has also compared Jews to termites, questioned the Holocaust, glorified Hitler, and condemned Judaism as a “dirty religion.”

Having used nearly every antisemitic trope in the playbook, Farrakhan and the NOI movement are responsible for creating the contemporary myth that Jews were responsible for the African Slave trade, publishing their lies in a notorious book, “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews.” This canard has been widely rejected and debunked by historians, including Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates and the American Historical Association, the latter of which denounced “any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the exploitation of slave labor.”

The Nation of Islam holds highly attended conventions in which Farrakhan attacks and disparages Jews, and its online content and social media accounts have been banned and removed from multiple platforms, including Facebook and YouTube. Despite Farrakhan’s blatant bias against Jews, he continues to be given a platform in the Black community and is on the speaking circuit at many churches.

He has a troubling number of friends and followers in the professional sports and Hip-Hop scenes; celebrity supporters have included Jay-Z, Ice Cube, DeSean Jackson, Lord Jamar, Larry Johnson, Stephen Jackson, Nick Cannon, and Jay Electronica. Several local, state, and federal politicians have also had associations with Farrakhan, ranging from a former DC council member to former President Barack Obama. In the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd, multiple celebrities, including Chelsea Handler, Jameela Jamil, Jessica Chastain, and Madonna, shared video clips of Farrakhan on their social media.

Ava Muhammad, a Nation of Islam spokeswoman, has said that Jews are “godless,” “blood-sucking parasites” who “sell us alcohol, drugs, depraved sex, and every other type of low-life thing.” She also said that Jewish people were the driving force behind keeping black people down in the South following the Civil War.

In 2020, Ishmael Muhammad, Farrakhan’s National Assistant, warned the Black community against taking COVID-19 vaccines and said a special version of the vaccine had been secretly designed for Jewish people.

The Nation of Islam also traffics in anti-Zionism, with many of its members claiming that Jewish people are fake “Khazar Jews” with no connection to Israel.