The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion emerged in the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century, presented as minutes of a secret Jewish leadership plotting world domination through finance, media, and political subversion. It became one of history’s most consequential forgeries: a plagiarized antisemitic fantasy that helped normalize persecution and later fed Nazi propaganda. Online and print recirculation still tries to rehabilitate it as “essentially true” regardless of provenance.
