Disraeli’s own success story supplied the template for antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish influence

Evidence

The political result of Disraeli’s ability to gauge Jewish possibilities by the political aspirations of a normal people was more serious; he almost automatically produced the entire set of theories about Jewish influence and organization that we usually find in the more vicious forms of antisemitism. First of all, he actually thought of himself as the “chosen man of the chosen race.” What better proof was there than his own career: a Jew without name and riches, helped only by a few Jewish bankers, was carried to the position of the first man in England; one of the less liked men of Parliament became Prime Minister and earned genuine popularity among those who for a long time had “regarded him as a charlatan and treated him as a pariah.” — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 232

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the later conspiracy-theory chapters of Origins of Totalitarianism and to the Islamophobia field’s account of how ‘Jewish power’ claims were constructed.