On September 4, 2024, I sent this letter to Candace Owens regarding many comments she has made about Jews, Zionism and Israel. I have known Candace for about as long as she has been in public life. She began her podcasting at PragerU in 2019 and left in 2021. She left on very good terms. To this day, she often speaks of her respect and love for Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, and me.
Within hours of receiving my letter, Candace replied:
“I deeply appreciate this e-mail and I will respond to it thoroughly. Please know that I respect you tremendously and it is difficult for me to reconcile how I feel about you and Marissa and the amazing way in which I was treated by you both, and my new feelings and understanding about Zionism. Please give me a bit of time to respond to all of your points. You can always reach out to me and no matter which side of this or any political debate we wind up on, my love and respect for you and Marissa and your treatment of me will never be swayed.”
As it happens, more than two weeks later, Candace had not responded to the letter. Given the number of subjects covered, the letter’s length, and Candace’s busy family life and career, I did not expect her to. I sent it to Candace to give her the chance to respond and because I did not want her to first see it when it went public.
Last week, after not hearing from her, I emailed Candace that I would be publishing the letter. We then spoke on the phone, she briefly explained why she hadn't been able to respond in writing, and she in no way objected to my making the letter public.
I wish I did not have to write this letter. But Candace has said many things that need to be answered. The primary reasons I have not spoken out sooner are that I needed to become fully acquainted with all or nearly all the things she has said about Jews, Zionism, and Israel, make sure I quoted her accurately, and that I never did so out of context. That was time-consuming work.
I ask anyone who has been influenced by Candace with regard to Jews, Israel, and Zionism to make the effort to read this entire letter. If you care about truth, I believe you have a moral obligation to do so.
Dennis Prager
Dear Candace:
Like you were with Kanye West, I have been under great pressure to condemn you for what many see as your growing antisemitism.
Because I wanted to reach out to you privately before I say anything publicly, I have devoted a lot of time to listening to your relevant podcast episodes and your comments in debates and conversations with other people. If you think, based on my responses here, I’ve missed anything relevant, please let me know. I want to take everything into account, and do so in full context.
1. Israel was founded by “Frankists” (“masquerading as Jews”).
You say: “The nation of Israel was established by some Frankists. . . .”
I taught Jewish history at Brooklyn College, and never heard or read such a thing. And even if there were any truth to it, it in no way explains the founding of Israel. For two thousand years, as part of daily ritual prayers, Jews prayed three times a day to be able to return to their homeland, Israel. That, plus the world witnessing what happens when Jews have no homeland — centuries of pogroms, massacres, and expulsions (which inspired Theodor Herzl to organize the Jews’ return to Israel — “Zionism” — in the late nineteenth century) culminating in the Holocaust — is what led to the reestablishment of the Jewish state. That Herzl came from the same general region as did Jacob Frank, who predated Herzl by about 150 years — a region with millions of Jews who were not Frankists — and therefore must have been a Frankist, seems like a pretty big leap.
2. Alleged “Frankists,” who were in fact ethnic Jews, were responsible for missing, and presumably murdered, Christian children around Passover time.
You say: “Catholics and Christians were going missing on Passover, then they would find bodies across Europe, and they were able to trace them back to Jews . . . . They weren’t Jews, OK? It was the Frankists, and just as Leo Frank killed Mary Phagan on Passover back in 1913 or 1914 — [it was done] on Passover for a reason. The Frankist cult, which masquerades behind Jews, still participates in this shit to this day. Why would you want, as a small nation that is the size of New Jersey, the pedophiles to flee there?”
Therefore, Israel was founded to be a haven for pedophiles — who, furthermore, engage in slaughtering Christians as part of a satanic ritual.
That is as close to the medieval libel of Jews — as butchers of Christian children to use their blood for baking Passover matzo — as I have heard in my lifetime. You mock the idea that this is another blood libel. But that is what it is. And given how many Jews were massacred, often tortured to death, because of it, Jews have good reason to loathe it.
You cite and deem as credible the two modern instances of the blood libel against Jews: “Most people don’t know. They think that the nation of Israel was established because of World War II. No. There was a lot going on leading up to that. Learn about the Damascus Affair of 1840. Learn about what happened to Eszter Solymosi in Austria in 1880. There were Christians who kept on going missing on holidays and the entire Christian world rose up and began publicizing, trying to point to what they believed to be a satanic cult. Of course, all of that’s been erased. Most Christians don’t know this.”
In 1840, in Damascus, Syrian Jews were charged with butchering Capuchin friar Thomas, an Italian monk living in Damascus. The Capuchins in Damascus spread the charge, which resulted in 63 Jewish children being abducted from their families to force the families to divulge the location of the friar’s blood. And a Jewish barber named Solomon Negrin was arbitrarily arrested and tortured until a “confession” was extorted from him. Under torture Negrin said that seven Jews killed the monk in the house of David Harari. The seven men were subsequently arrested and also tortured. Two of them died under torture.
The other blood libel you cite as credible took place in Austria-Hungary in 1882. Jews were accused of murdering and beheading a 14-year-old Catholic girl named Eszter Solymosi. A girl’s body was found on the bank of the Tisza River, but though the body was dressed in Eszter’s clothes, it was not Eszter. And if it was, it proved the charges to be libelous — there was no injury to her neck.
Nevertheless, members of the local Jewish community were accused of having killed Eszter for ritual purposes, as it happened right before Passover. Jews, according to the centuries-old charge, use Christians’ blood to bake Matzo, the unleavened Passover bread.
Eventually, after 15 months of investigation, the Hungarian Highest Court (Kúria), in a unanimous verdict, acquitted of all the accused.
You repeat this libel of anti-Christian crimes committed by Jews in another podcast: “There’s a lot behind my refusal, my absolute refusal, to bend the knee to Israel, as many American politicians have done. There’s too much I’ve learned about their [Israel’s? Jews’?] history, about what was done to Christians, which they’re alleging now is blood libel — that none of that’s real, it didn’t happen. . .”
It didn’t happen, and repeating it does terrible harm. It is painful for me to know that the Candace I have known would say such things.
3. Israel is not our ally
You say you are “over the idea that Israel is our ally . . . if another person says that stupid statement, I am going to personally punch you in the face.” You then add that the “punch in the face” comment was a joke. But nothing else was meant as a joke.
The “joke” conveyed your contempt for anyone who says such a thing. I am one of those. And I am hardly an outlier in this regard. American administrations, Democrat and Republican, since Harry Truman saw Israel as America’s greatest ally in the Middle East, and one of its greatest allies in the world. Only the Biden administration has begun to regard Israel differently.
In every year for which I could find data — 2005 to 2021 — Israel voted with America at the United Nations more often than any other country in the world.
And no country has supplied the U.S. with more intelligence or as much arms innovation as has Israel. I’ll cite an example from 1986: The New York Times quoted retired Air Force intelligence chief, Gen. George F. Keegan, as praising “Israeli assistance in discovering Soviet Air Force capabilities, new weapons, electronics and jamming devices. ’I could not have procured the intelligence . . . with five CIAs. The ability of the U.S. Air Force in particular, and the Army in general, to defend whatever position it has in NATO owes more to the Israeli intelligence input than it does to any other single source of intelligence, be it satellite reconnaissance, be it technology intercept, or what have you.’”
The Iron Dome has become a critical part of the U.S. Army’s defense system. It is produced in America, but its technology was invented in Israel.
Bill Gates, whom I do not like, but who knows the tech industry, said in 2006 that the “innovation going on in Israel is critical to the future of the technology business.”
Mike Huckabee, another conservative Christian who supports Israel — in your view, if I understand you correctly, foolishly and counter to Christian values — wrote in the conservative Washington Examiner:
“Modern Israel has given us the mobile phone, the drip irrigation system, the USB thumb drive, many of the most effective cancer killing drugs in use, voice mail, video on demand, and cherry tomatoes. America’s relationship with Israel is not merely organizational, it’s organic. Israel is a mirror image of America in its commitment to religious liberty, education, women’s rights, free speech, democratic governance and free-market capitalism. Women have equal access to education and workplace opportunities. While a Jewish state, Israel also protects all religious shrines and provides Christians, Muslims and Jews universal access to all religious sites. (How many churches or synagogues are equally protected by the Syrians or the Iranians?)”
To download the rest of the full 15-page letter, click here.