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.
In an interview published Friday by The Media Line, Prager said Owens' claims are not only false but also corrosive to the conservative coalition, fueling hostility toward Jews and deepening divisions within the Republican-aligned right.
Owens claimed 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."
She described religious Jews as encouraging Jews to be "contract lords."
Prager fired back on such hate in his recent interview which builds on a 15-page open letter he sent Owens in September 2024 — later published publicly.
In that letter, Prager sought to answer what he described as a pattern: allegations casting Jews and Israel as uniquely sinister forces in global affairs, paired with claims drawn from historically discredited anti-Jewish polemics.
In The Media Line interview with Felice Friedson, Prager responded to Owens' recent attacks on "Talmudic Jews."
Prager, who said he studied in yeshiva for 14 years, countered that he never encountered such teachings in Jewish education and argued that the only context in which he has heard those notions is in material designed "to create hatred of Jews."
He emphasized that the Talmud is vast — millions of words — containing legal discussion and debate across centuries, and that cherry-picked "quotes" are often mistranslations, stripped of context, or outright fabrication.
In the interview, Prager also addressed Owens' use of "Der Talmudjude," a 19th-century antisemitic book by August Rohling, which he said had been exposed historically for unreliable scholarship and fabricated citations.
Prager also condemned Owens for encouraging Black Americans to turn their anger away from white Americans and toward Jews, who she claims were responsible for the transatlantic slave trade.
In the interview, Prager pointed readers toward scholarly rebuttals and noted that major historical organizations have rejected attempts to portray Jews as disproportionately responsible for slavery.
Even beyond the factual dispute, Prager argued the intent and effect are incendiary: resurrecting accusations about centuries-old wrongs to stoke contemporary animus against "modern-day Jews," while ignoring Jewish involvement in the civil-rights struggle.
In his September 2024 letter, Prager challenged Owens' repeated assertion that Israel was founded by "Frankists" — a fringe movement associated with Jacob Frank — who "masquerad[ed] as Jews," and that this purported origin story undercuts Zionism and Israel's legitimacy.
Prager rejected the premise and argued that modern Zionism emerged from centuries of Jewish attachment to the land and the historic vulnerability of Jews without a state, culminating in the Holocaust.
More explosively, Prager accused Owens of echoing "blood libel" narratives — allegations that Jews murder Christians, particularly around Passover, for ritual purposes.
In the letter, Prager wrote that Owens promoted or lent credibility to claims about Christian disappearances and ritual murder accusations tied to infamous episodes such as the Damascus Affair of 1840 and the Tiszaeszlár blood libel of 1882.
He described such insinuations as among the most dangerous anti-Jewish myths in European history.
In the Media Line interview, Prager extended that critique to Owens' broader framing of Israel as uniquely "demonic," saying her standards appear to single out the Jewish state for moral condemnation while giving comparatively little attention to atrocities by other actors and regimes.
Prager stopped short of declaring Owens personally motivated by hatred of Jews "just for being Jews," and instead offered a narrower definition of antisemitism: hatred of Jews as Jews and/or insisting that the Jewish state should be uniquely eliminated.
But he said the practical impact is unmistakable: even if Owens denies the label, her messaging is "leading many of her followers" toward seeing Jews as manipulative puppet-masters, particularly in the United States.
He also described his attempt to resolve the conflict privately first.
According to Prager's published account, Owens initially replied appreciatively and promised a thorough response; Prager later said she did not provide one, and he proceeded to publish the letter after further communication.
Prager's warning comes as antisemitism and antisemitic-adjacent conspiracism have become a flashpoint on the right, with internal disputes over whether major figures are amplifying extremists or normalizing anti-Jewish narratives.
Much of the current uproar has centered on Tucker Carlson, who faced sharp criticism after platforming far-right activist Nick Fuentes — known for antisemitic rhetoric — prompting public denunciations from some Republican leaders and a broader intra-conservative backlash.
But Carlson himself, like Owens, has been an active promoter of antisemitic claims and theories.
The former Fox News host and podcaster has stated that Jews control America's banking system, Congress, the media, the Pentagon and even President Donald Trump.
He recently declared that famed Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor who opposed the Nazis, was actually advocating "murder" when he said Hitler should be killed to stop his genocidal war.
The controversy surrounding Carlson has spilled into the Heritage Foundation, once the nation's leading conservative think tank, after its president, Kevin Roberts, defended Carlson amid the blowback — then faced staff revolts and external criticism.
Roberts has refused to criticize Carlson's antisemitism, creating a crisis at the think tank triggering resignations including three board members and several prominent scholars.
For Prager, the political stakes are explicit.
In the Media Line interview, he argued that conservatives — Jews and Christians alike — risk fracturing "over false premises," chiefly the idea that Jews or Israel are responsible for "much of the world's problems."
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