The “Jewish parasite” is a notion that dates back to the Age of Enlightenment.[citation needed] It is based on the notion that the Jews of the diaspora are incapable of forming their own states and would therefore parasitically attack and exploit states and peoples, which are biologically imagined as organisms or “peoples bodies”. The stereotype is often associated with the accusation of usury and the separation of “creative”, i.e. productive, and “raffling”, non-productive financial capital (“High Finance”).

Zionism The description of Jews as parasites can be found under other notions since the beginning of the 20th century also in Zionism. Aharon David Gordon (1856–1922), an organizer of the Second Aliyah from the Ukrainian Zhytomyr, wrote:

“We are a parasitic people. We have no roots in the ground, there is no reason under our feet. And we are parasites not only in economic sense, but also in spirit, in thought, in poetry, in literature, in our virtues, our ideals, our higher human aspirations. Every foreign movement sweeps us with itself, every wind in the world carries us. We ourselves are almost non-existent, which is why we are of course nothing in the eyes of other peoples.”

— Aharon David Gordon[77]