This page began as an entry on my then various and sundry page ([1]). After completion (but before publication), I found it impracticably long for that page and moved it to this, separate, page.
For reasons of time, I have not attempted to fix any references that might need [1] or the time of writing (2026-01-12 to -14) as context. (At least one exists, concerning ICE and the Leftist riots in Minnesota.) For such matters, I refer to [1], with my apologies.
To be more specific in terms of time, my watching (cf. below) and most of the writing took place on 2026-01-12, but the polishing and publication of the first version of this page (including the aforementioned move) only concluded on 2026-01-14.
Also see an older text on “rooting for”, already somewhat relevant in its own right, to which an excursion partially around “Jud Süß” has been added. (In part, to expand on some ideas present below, e.g. around the “choir”.)
I have finally watched “Jud Süß”, otherwise infamous as, maybe, the most prominent film in the Nazi-propaganda and anti-Jew genres. The film is loosely based on historical events around one Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (the eponymous Jud Süß; I will use “Oppenheimer” below); his influence on, interactions with, whatnot, Duke Carl Alexander of Württemberg (I will use “the duke”); and the consequences thereof.
I make no statement about how the film and the historical events relate to each other in detail, nor how characters in the film compare to their historical counterparts, beyond noting that some who have looked into the matter view the film as defamatory towards Oppenheimer, and that I, personally, would find negative distortion and/or exaggeration around Oppenheimer and/or the duke plausible from my watching.
Mentions of various persons below will refer strictly to the film versions—not the historical persons.
If we first briefly pretend that there was no Jewish angle to the film, it is actually reasonably good by the standards of the day and/or of Germany. (German film making has been mediocre after the strong silent era.) Some portions detract through seeming unintentionally comical, as with several scenes involving the duke (most notably, his death scene), but the overall impression is stronger, the performance by Ferdinand Marian (as Oppenheimer) is strong, and there are quite a few thought-worthy parts from (cf. below) a political perspective—although, presumably, not in the manner intended by the Nazis. A particular point is that a very similar film could easily have been made with a non-Jewish replacement for Oppenheimer, except in those parts where the anti-Semitism of the society portrayed is concerned (cf. below). Doing so would likely have made the revised Oppenheimer more abhorrent, as the treatment of Jews gives the viewer at least some understanding for his actions (note that “understanding” does not imply “approval”). Similarly, at least to a modern reader, Shakespeare’s Shylock would look far worse had he not been a Jew and, thereby, seen a very different life than had the surrounding Christians. Indeed, as with Shylock, it seems plausible that Oppenheimer’s behavior was at least partially rooted in how others mistreated him and/or other Jews (“if you prick me, do I not prick you back?”, as it were, or “you scratch my face; I scratch your face”).
Looking at Shakespeare and Venice, Oppenheimer likely had more in common with Iago than Shylock.
As an anti-Jew film, it is a bit puzzling, however, and I suspect that it works (in as far as it does work, at all; but see portions of an excursion) more by re-affirming the choir (in a “preaching to the choir” sense) in its faith than in converting others. From my point of view, the film does more to inform about what the Nazi-German sentiments towards Jews might have been and to show the dangers of such sentiments, thereby painting an unflattering portrait of the Nazis than it does to vilify Jews as a collective (as opposed to some individual Jews, Oppenheimer foremost; indeed, an interesting contrast is that Jewish misdeeds in the film stem from a very small group of Jews, while the anti-Semitism is both society-wide and directed at Jews in general).
Going by German Wikipediaw:de, some participants in the making of the film were less than enthusiastic and it is conceivable that this affected the resulting film.
This might also give an alternate explanation to anti-Jewish caricature for the ugly appearance of several Jewish characters: They were played by the same actor (Werner Krauß), who appears to have tried to get out of participating in the film by ridiculously demanding that he play all (or none) of the supporting Jewish characters (presumably, limited the male ones). This ridiculous demand was granted, which might have led to excessive make-up efforts to hide the fact that only one actor was used. (Of course, it might be the other way around, that an anti-Jewish caricature was already planned and that this was what led to the granting of the ridiculous demand...)
A notable example is that the (presumably, “Aryan”) duke is the character that I found the least sympathetic—not Oppenheimer. He is incompetent, easily manipulated, seeks cheap pleasures, sees his duchy as a source of income and entertainment, overrides the constitution at will, ignores (or is ignorant of) the plight of his people, whatnot. To boot, he uses his status, power, and/or money to gain access to women even against their will. From an optical point of view he also fares worse, which increases my suspicion that my impressions are approximately in line with the intentions of the film-makers, through being “comically fat” and otherwise unappealing, while showing a similarly off-putting sets of mannerisms as Oppenheimer (a different set, true, but still one similarly off-putting). More generally, the two characters are in many regards similar and similarly off-putting for somewhat similar reasons, with a key difference being that the duke was an idiot born into power while Oppenheimer was a man who used his considerable intelligence to gain new power. Certainly, Oppenheimer would have done far less damage to the world, had it not been for how incompetent (etc.) the duke was.
At the same time, there are great signs of anti-Semitism among the German characters, both on a personal and an institutional basis, that goes well beyond an (understandable) rejection of just Oppenheimer and those in his inner circle. Among many examples note that Stuttgart (where large parts of the film play) was portrayed as originally off-limits to Jews, that Oppenheimer was frequently referred to as “der Jude” (“the Jew”) instead of by name, and that one of the nominally nobler characters rejects, in a blanket manner, the idea of his daughter having children with a Jew (because of being Jewish—not because of being specifically Oppenheimer). Towards the end of the film, Oppenheimer is hanged exactly for having had sex with a Christian woman (specifically, said daughter), while a collective punishment is extended to all local Jews in the form of banishment. (Also note my above remark on preaching to the choir: Who truly looks bad in light of this paragraph—the Jews or the Germans/Christians/whatnot?)
The motivation for the hanging is particularly interesting, because merely having sex with a Christian woman would, by today’s standards, seem like a complete triviality. (And even in the context of the film, I do not rule out that it was mostly a matter of, somehow, giving the death penalty a formal justification.) This, while Oppenheimer had committed a great number of crimes-by-any-reasonable standards, including having a blacksmith hanged for getting on his wrong side. The Christian woman? Not only did he have sex with her (who, today, cares?), but he did so by having her husband tortured and using his screams to blackmail her into an exchange of sex for the husband’s freedom. Shortly thereafter, her drowned body is collected from a river, with the implication that she killed herself almost immediately afterwards.
In reverse, there is at least one Jewish character, a Rabbi, who goes against the stereotypical portrayal of Jews as greedy and conniving. While he ultimately goes along with Oppenheimer’s requests, he appears to do so with some eye at protecting his fellow Jews and only after condemning Oppenheimer for his vanity and his luxurious life style, books that he owns but does not read, how he distorts the words of God for his own purposes, and similar. (And, as a rabbi is a religious authority, this could be taken to criticize Oppenheimer for, in some sense, failing as a Jew, which then would put a Jewish ideal in direct opposition to the portrayed stereotype.)
Looking beyond the portrayal of Jews, there were a great many things done wrong (including some that paralleled Nazi actions, with Hitler in the place of the duke). Note e.g. a disabling of the Rechtsstaat, the use of the legal machinery for the persecution of dissenters for dissenting, the imposition of excessive taxes with no regard for the effects on the people, and a willingness to use soldiers to eliminate the opposition and make the duke a dictator. Here, we have some warning signs about what to truly avoid in the politics, be it in Stuttgart of old, Nazi-Germany, or the modern West. Jews are not the problem, but governments, insufficient restrictions on governments, a neglect of civic rights, whatnot, very often are.
The film also illustrates a text in my backlog on the best way to get rich—trick the government into giving you money. (Consider e.g. various COVID-era and/or Minnesota scams, the use of tax-payer’s money to fund various groups, misdesigned health-insurance schemes in many countries that unduly enrich insurers, the military industry, ...)
The question of money, getting money from the government, the unethical business methods used by Oppenheimer, whatnot, could also point to an anti-Capitalist angle of the film—well in line with the Nazi opposition to Capitalism. (Very contrary to what e.g. Communists like to claim.) Likewise, there might well be an anti-monarchical angle, where weak and greedy aristocrats (e.g. the duke) should be replaced with strong and noble novi homines (e.g. Hitler; but note, again, some similarity in methods between the duke and Hitler).
Off-topic, an illustration of how the superficially plausible can be implausible on closer inspection and of how tricky issues of language and association can be:
Writing the above, I also contemplated whether there might be a hidden barb towards Mussolini, be it by the film-makers or the Nazi regime, based on the cognates “duce” and “duke”. However, the German word for “duke” is “Herzog”, and, going by wiktionary, the Italian word is “duca”, which makes the idea far-fetched.
(While “duce”, just like the German “Führer”, matches the English “leader”. If this Italian implausibility were to be accepted, the additional step to viewing the film as a veiled criticism of Hitler would not be a big one. I do not suggest that this is the case, to avoid any misunderstanding, but there would have been something magnificent in such a reversal.)
An interesting point is how the historical aversion against Jews might in part be explained by non-Jews having interactions with or exposure to a sub-group of Jews who happened to share certain negative characteristics—and characteristics that had nothing to do with their being Jews (beyond indirect mechanisms like Jews and Christians often historically having a different set of available professions for legal or religious reasons), but potentially much with the interaction or exposure. This, in particular, as a non-Jew might be disproportionately likely to meet Jews in professions prone to such problems compared to both other professions and interactions with non-Jews in different professions. (Even today, a practising Christian might meet Jews as lawyers or dentists but not as members of the same congregation, while the congregation is filled with other Christians, most of whom will be neither lawyers nor dentists.)
Such characteristics are, indeed, quite common among non-Jews too and a similar skewed set of interactions or exposures might well explain some other aversions in society, e.g. in that an unethical businessman, regardless of ethnicity, might have a larger chance of being successful than an ethical counterpart and, therefore, of being encountered by others in a business deal, or, conceivably, that someone with a weak sense of ethics would be more likely to become a businessman to begin with. This could then lead to businessmen as a group, but regardless of matters like ethnicity, being viewed more negatively than some other groups.
Of course, here we might have an indirect angle through which “Jud Süß” could have a propaganda effect, namely, in that it could expose a greater group to such a skewed interaction, if by proxy and in fictional form. Indeed, I have warned against similar problems in modern media, e.g. in that cases of abusive husbands/boyfriends are utterly disproportionate on TV relative both the real world and portrayals of abusive wives/girlfriends (which are more common than such husbands/boyfriends in the real world), which feeds into a Feminist (more generally, Leftist) worldview and Feminist propaganda that does not match reality but can be anchored in the minds of incautious viewers through such distorting TV. In this, “Jud Süß” is unlikely to do much taken alone; however, in a preponderance of other distortions, as with modern U.S. TV, the matter might stand very differently.
Apart from “Jud Süß” and some (more documentary and/or visually experimentative) films by Leni Riefenstahl, I have seen at least one other film from what is normally considered the main Nazi oeuvre—“Hitlerjunge Quex”.
While this was so long ago that I do not remember much, my impression at the time was that it really did not contain much in terms of propaganda or disinformation (beyond what follows almost automatically from a division into protagonists and antagonists). Instead, it might have “erred” in doing something considered unacceptable in today’s climate—namely, portraying the Nazis as human beings instead of unmitigated evil-doers out to do evil for the sake of doing evil. In this, however, chances are that it came close to the truth: The evil of Nazism is a reflection of how common evil is in humans, not in something uniquely Nazi, and much of its evil actions arose from useful idiots and/or idealists believing that they were fighting the good fight and that the end justified the means. In this, they are very much like their Marxist counterparts of the day and great swathes of the modern Left. (And the fallacy of viewing the Nazis as unique is particularly dangerous for the reason that it might indirectly trivialize such other evils.) Indeed, many of the idiots who have taken to the streets to protest against ICE over the last few days proudly would have marched with Hitler, had they lived in Germany around 1932, because the mechanisms and personal weaknesses that are involved are very similar.
With reservations for my memory, I would also say that watching “Hitlerjunge Quex” would be unlikely to create very great sympathies in the modern viewer and be more likely to give insight into what once might have attracted the masses to Nazis (in particular) and extreme and/or popular movements (in general).
Both “Jud Süß” and “Hitlerjunge Quex” are among the so called “Vorbehaltsfilme” (roughly, “reservation films”; the German expression is similarly idiotic), that (a) are under the copyright/whatnot of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung (a German society for matters like film preservation) and (b) are deemed as not suitable for public consumption by this society. While the society might do much good in other areas, here it engages in an abusive use of copyright control for purposes of censorship and denies the potential viewers the right to make up their own minds upon matters. This, notably, not limited e.g. to whether the message propagated by a film is of value, but also including e.g. whether a particular film is, in some sense, dangerous. If no-one ever watches such films, then the opinions of the society will stand unchallenged—and there are quite a few works freely available that are far worse (cf. other excursion) than at least these two films. (I have some suspicions on how other “Vorbehaltsfilme” compare, but these suspicions rely on extrapolation and not actual watching.)
Such censorship is, in it self, something of which Goebels might have approved.
I grant that giving specific examples of such far worse works is tricky, because of matters like taste, perspective, and what counts. For instance, my thoughts at the time of drafting were on various far-Left and/or Marxist propaganda works. However, should such textual and non-fiction works be compared with feature films?
Comparing films, on the other hand, is tricky. However, to turn the tables, virtually all depictions of Nazis that I have encountered in even semi-recent films is of a far worse nature (even after adjusting for the objectively great level of evil of Nazi-Germany) than corresponding depictions of Communists and whatnot present in “Hitlerjunge Quex” (again with reservations for my memory) and a great many than the depictions of Jews in “Jud Süß”. Consider e.g. the versions shown in some recent Marvel movies or in the early portions of (the original) “Hell Boy”—similar depictions made of more-or-less any other real-life group would border on the unthinkable. (I would like to give “Inglorious Basterds” a mention as a very long and very Nazi-centric work, but I have only seen it once and well over ten years ago, so my memory might mislead me.) An interesting counterexample is the depiction in “Das Boot” (an old-by-now film), which also makes something clear that most modern films ignore—that serving in the Nazi-German military and being a dedicated member of the NSDAP were two different things.
A problem outside of Nazis is that I have often not seen films likely to be problematic at all (based on warning reviews and in combination with the enormous amount of other works available) and would be amiss to mention them as examples. In other cases, I have watched some portion, shut the film off in disgust, and then not had enough of a memory to connect the right name with the right problem. (A potential key difference is that I do agree that Nazis were evil, if not at the worst-every-in-human-history level that is so often pushed, while I do not agree that e.g. Whites, men, and Appalachians are evil—or, for that matter, Jews.)
Looking at TV, there are a great number of examples of works that are more subtle, truly harmless-seeming to the unwary, but (cf. above) can manipulate the worldview of unwary viewers in a manner well beyond these two “Vorbehaltsfilme” (at least, in today’s world). Note e.g. several (not all) of the examples on a page on wokeness in fiction, including the disastrous consequences that could be caused if someone takes the apparent message of “Demon 79” to heart and the more subtle reality distortions of “The Rookie”. (The latter also demonstrates a good point about propaganda fiction—being blatant at the level of “Jud Süß” might do more harm than good to the propaganda cause, while sneaking in a bit here and a bit there can be much more effective.)
A particular negative, but one that I probably have not yet written about, is “Dead Boy Detectives”, which I stopped watching after one of the female protagonists, without contradiction from the others, let out such a hate-filled anti-male tirade that the series would have been immediately cancelled, had a male characters dared say similarly anti-female things—on top of quite a few lesser instances of wokeness or other nutcasery on the way there. In a comparison with “Jud Süß”, this points to a recurring problem of when the opinions of the characters on screen should be viewed as the opinions of the film-/TV-makers and/or the viewer is “supposed” to be converted to share the same opinions vs. cases where the characters opinions are just their own, with which makers and audience might entirely disagree. With many modern works, “Dead Boy Detectives” included, it is crystal clear that various wokeness problems fall in the former category, with reservations only for cases like when a show-runner inserts content to virtue signal without necessarily being a true believer. In the case of “Jud Süß” this might be less clear: Goebels et al. might have had a very clear purpose, but I am far from certain that it was shared by the actual film-makers and point to my above remarks about preaching to the choir. Viewed with the right mindset, as exemplified by my own watching, “Jud Süß” might (cf. other above remarks) lead to a reverse effect of revealing something about the (fictionalized) Stuttgart of yore, the Germany of the time of making, or similar. In the case of “Dead Boy Detectives” I would also virtually take for granted that the actress speaking those vile words was a true believer, while extending a benefit of a doubt to many of the “Jud Süß” actors—she spoke with a far greater and far more hateful conviction than they, while having given no signs of being a good enough actress to fake that conviction.
(The case of the “Dead Boy Detectives” is the more tragic as it could have been a really great series without such bullshit. As is, it appears to have been cancelled after a single 8-episode season—and even that was long after I left, relatively speaking.)
In early February 2026, I watched “Die Stadt ohne Juden” (“The City Without Jews”)—a very different work, but with a somewhat similar theme.
I watched a 2019 version and also draw on a skimming of the German Wikipedia pagew:de. For reasons like previously missing portions of the film, various reconstruction attempts, and different choices, there are other versions that might deviate in portions, notably as to whether the, in the words of Wikipedia, “happy end” was real or a dream sequence. (The phrase “happy end” is a German atrocity and an example of odd pseudo-English. This is also a language that has adopted a pseudo-English “handy” to imply “cell-phone”.)
The film is based on a book, which I have not read. The author, Hugo Bettauer, appears to have been born a Jew but to have converted to Christianity, which is an interesting combination in light of some of the below.
This is an Austrian silent-era/1924 film with a pro-Jewish (or, at a minimum, anti-anti-Jewish) message, with some interesting parallels to later historical developments: In the fictitious country (city? city state?) of Utopia, a mixture of economic considerations and popular sentiments leads the to an expulsion of Jews. The economic situation is similar to that found in e.g. contemporary Weimar Germany, where Hitler (a few years after the film) used anti-Jewish sentiments to gain electoral successes; and we have complications like poor Utopians watching some proportion of the Jews still being rich.
A temporary economic improvement follows, but then things increasingly turn bad; in part, because the Jews and their money are gone, with various side-effects; in part, because some others, including powerful foreign Jews, now boycott Utopia.
A Jew (Leo) comes back with falsified papers, pretending to be French, plasters the city with claims that “true Christians” (“wahrhaftige Christen”) wanted the Jews back, arranges for a parliamentary vote, and, before the vote, gets a key opposing voter drunk and otherwise sabotages his ability to actually vote in time, leading to the re-opening of Utopia to Jews—including that Leo can now be legally reunited with his (non-Jewish) Utopian fiancée.
The last part is interesting in as far as it continues the stereotype of the intriguing Jew and is not that different from some of the acts of Oppenheimer in “Jud Süß”, even be it with a nobler motive than Oppenheimer’s. Generally, there are many parallels and anti-parallels between “Die Stadt ohne Juden” and “Jud Süß”, and I am far from certain that the (pro-Jewish) former does a better job of standing up for Jews than the (intended as anti-Jewish) latter. Notably, the anti-Semitism shown in “Jud Süß” is more blatant and gives a worse impression of the Christians than in “Die Stadt ohne Juden”. The Jews in “Jud Süß” might behave worse, but this is largely centered on Oppenheimer, and “Die Stadt ohne Juden” is not without problems. Apart from Leo’s behaviors above, we have scenes like a hitherto-considered-himself-Jewish suddenly, opportunistically, considering-himself-Christian because the rules applied during the expulsion of Jews allowed him to do so and, thereby, to remain.
While I do not remember the exact rules involved, there were potentially exceptions for converts, half-Jews, and definitely exceptions for second-generation converts or some other second-generation group. Note, especially, the contrast to “Jud Süß”, where Oppenheimer eventually was hanged for having had sex with a Christian woman, showing a far lesser tolerance for Jews and inter-confessional/-racial relations.
I stress that I do not necessarily consider the film (and, presumably, the underlying book) in error for displaying such behaviors among Jews. From both a literary and realistic point of view, it is perfectly fine that e.g. a character uses a loophole to avoid expulsion. The point is rather that the film might have been wise to proceed otherwise, if set on a having a pro-Jewish message (especially, if directed at the broad masses in a manner similar to anti-Jewish “Jud Süß”).
I might go as far as saying that there is something theatrically exaggerated in “Jud Süß” and that it is this exaggeration that (in my eyes) makes the film backfire, while theatrical exaggerations, if of a different character, in “Die Stadt ohne Juden” weakens the pro-Jewish effect. (Although some allowances must be made for the early date of the latter and the often exaggerated-to-the-modern-eye film-making choices of the silent era.)
Looking at the real world of 2026, there are also some parallels, anti-parallels, and/or apparent such.
The most obvious might be the potential false equivalency between the current U.S. clampdown on (preferably, criminal) illegal aliens and the expulsion of Jews from Utopia. The Jews, of course, were legal residents, just as decent citizens as the Christians, and sometimes pillars of the economic community, while criminal illegal aliens are not. (And contrary to Leftist propaganda lies, ICE et co. do not deport Latinos for being Latinos—but criminal illegal aliens for being criminal illegal aliens.)
A truer case is the Leftist aversion against the successful, e.g. through the artificial imposition of oppressor–oppressed relationships, where the greater success of one group over another is seen proof that the former oppresses the latter. This matches both the anti-Jewish sentiments of the people of Utopia and the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments of much of the current Left—as well as e.g. the frequent current anti-White and anti-whatnot sentiments on Left. (With the reservation that “oppressor” sometimes need replacement with “exploiter”, “cheater”, or similar, and vice versa for “oppressed”. More in detail, the film indirectly shows how anti-Capitalist and anti-Jewish sentiments could easily merge, overlap, and/or influence each other—as they, indeed, did in both Marxism and Nazism.)
Another truer case is what happens when significant contributors to society are removed, hindered, given incentives to leave, whatnot. While the film is fictional, similar things are on historical record, if often in a more subtle manner than portrayed. Consider the situations in South Africa or Zimbabwe after, first, power moved from White to Black hands and, second, Whites were increasingly shoved aside or forced out; how (previously and approximately) Capitalist and free-market societies have fared after a take-over in the Socialist, plan economy, whatnot, family; how the replacement of those pesky White men (and Jews, and East Asians) through “affirmative action” hiring/promoting is doing damage in the U.S. and many other countries; or, throwing a wider net, how California and New York are currently shooting themselves in the respective foot by driving businesses and billionaires out by excessive taxes, tax threats, and other bullshit. In particular, as in the film, the idea behind such developments have very often been to increase the well-being of the masses—and, as in the film, has usually had the opposite effect. (Ditto, m.m., reasons like “social justice”.)
A tricky case is the juxtaposition of the boycotts in the film with the anti-Israel and/or anti-Jewish BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement—the more so, as boycotts on an international scale often do more harm than good to all involved parties by damaging free trade, hampering growth, and increasing hostilities. The methods were/are somewhat similar, as far as can be judged from the brief portrayal in the film, but the motives might not be. (And there is the confounding factor that what, in my memory, was presented as a boycott in the perception of the Utopians might have gone back to other factors, notably, a fear that Utopia was a too risky country to invest money or, literally or metaphorically, was a bad investment in light of the expulsion of Jews.) Notably, the boycotts in the film went back to direct anti-Jewish actions, while BDS is often driven by a prejudiced anti-Jewish sentiments. Likewise, the anti-Jewish actions in the film were easily verifiable and not contested by Utopia, while the reasons or “reasons” proposed by the BSD movement are often nothing more than propaganda lies and/or seem to be based on the idea that Israel and/or the Jews must go—regardless of who has done what to whom.
Similar ideas are indeed often unreasonable. For instance, after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, many were not content with condemning/boycotting/whatnot Putin, the state of Russia, or similar, but turned against Russians, in general, even when the Russian at hand had no connection to the invasion beyond merely being Russian. Even the long dead Tchaikovsky was targeted. Likewise, if someone truly and genuinely wants nothing beyond destroying Israel, then why target Jews, in general, on e.g. college campuses?
An interesting point of little relevance to “Jud Süß” (but potentially both of current interest and a weakener of the pro-Jewish message) is that of media control, and how the Jews (pre-expulsion) appeared to have a disproportionate control of media in Utopia (similar to some times and places in the real world). There is even one exchange in which Jewish playwrights are mentioned, a Christian protests that “We write plays too!” and is met with the retort that “But ours are actually staged!”. (In both cases, in a very approximate paraphrase from memory. Note that a difference in plays being staged need not reflect, say, a Jewish world theater conspiracy—a greater number of accomplished playwrights might suffice. Ditto e.g. a greater number of theater owners who might prefer to stage plays by personal friends from a Jewish circle or with themes with which they are familiar from Jewish thought or culture. However, the result might still be a disproportionate influence over what messages reach the audience.)
Leaving unstated whether there was such a problem involving specifically Jews and Utopia (Weimar Germany, 20th-century U.S., whatnot), a control over media by any group, ideology, or similar can be very problematic. Recent times have e.g. seen a great Leftist influence and an influence that definitely is a problem through how it is deliberately abused for the pushing of Leftist agendas and reality distortion. (See e.g. portions of the previous excursions and a link to more on wokeness in fiction.) Ditto the Nazi influence over culture, and deliberate abuse, at the time of the making of “Jud Süß”. Etc.