(RNS) — Speaking to his millions of viewers last week, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson blamed an unlikely target, Chabad-Lubavitch, the Jewish Hasidic group known for its international outreach efforts, as an instigator of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.
He claimed, without proof, that Chabad is behind the war in an attempt to construct a Third Temple, a rebuild of a historical Jewish holy site, on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, and destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslim holy site that currently stands there. He also accused the group, and Jews in general, of orchestrating a global conflict between Christian and Muslim worlds.
“This has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad — C-H-A-B-A-D,” Carlson said, spelling out the group’s name on the March 5 episode of his YouTube show.
The focus was quickly amplified by fellow conservative ideologue Candace Owens. “Tucker is telling the truth about the Chabad Lubavitch,” She posted on X to her nearly 8 million followers. “Remember they are digging tunnels in New York and in cities all across America. They are taking over entire towns in New Jersey. You should absolutely be aware of where the Chabad is nearest to your home. These people are dangerous.”
Chabad spokesman Yaacov Behrman said on X that Carlson’s claims were “dangerous blood libel,” adding that “reckless rhetoric like this is dangerous and irresponsible.”
The increased attention prompted Chabad rabbis around the country and world to increase security and reiterate the group’s peaceful messianic mission.
The attention comes just weeks after Chabad’s world headquarters in New York’s Brooklyn borough was rammed by a car in January; there were no injuries. And in December, a Chabad rabbi and 14 others were killed in a mass shooting at a Hanukkah event in Sydney.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023, Chabad’s emissaries around the world have been targeted for attacks. In November 2024, a Chabad rabbi in the United Arab Emirates was kidnapped and murdered by a group of Uzbek nationals allegedly linked to an Iranian-backed terror cell.
Carlson “speaks as if the whole idea of Jewish safety is made up,” Behrman told RNS in a phone interview. “My wife has two friends whose husbands were murdered in Australia. … I personally know the rabbi in Dubai who was murdered. I know the rabbi in Mumbai who was murdered for being a Jew.
“I’ve lost friends. It is not a joke. Jewish safety is a real issue,” Behrman said. “When he (Carlson) speaks and spreads misinformation, and others like him — even those far worse than him — spread lies about a movement, about a community, they are endangering that community.”
After Carlson’s comments, the Chabad branch at Columbia University in New York City emailed students and alumni on Friday (March 6), saying it was in contact with law enforcement and strengthened its security measures amid the “wild rants” from “darker corners of the internet.”
“Chabad emissaries are not political actors or shadowy figures — they are families raising children while serving Jewish communities from Abuja to Manila, and from Tucumán to Bishkek, and they dedicate their lives to the well-being of the people around them,” Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the chairman of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States, told RNS. “When public figures frame Chabad in conspiratorial terms, it risks turning ordinary rabbis and their families into targets. Words spoken on large platforms can have real consequences on the ground.”
The right-wing podcaster in recent months has questioned conservative evangelicals’ longtime support for Israel. He’s also drawn accusations of antisemitism, particularly for his interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes.
In Carlson’s episode, he discussed reports of U.S. and Israeli military leaders leaning on messianic justifications for the war, with a U.S commander reportedly telling troops that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” Carlson then pointed to a video of an Israel Defense Forces soldier bearing a patch with a representation of the Third Temple, and saying it is part of what Israel is fighting for.
Carlson claimed that the patch was distributed by Chabad, which Chabad leaders have denied. The patches Carlson referenced seem to match those distributed by the Temple Institute, a Jerusalem-based organization unaffiliated with Chabad.
Carlson also erroneously implied the video of the IDF soldier was recent, though the soldier referred to himself as participating in Operation Swords of Iron, a term used by Israel for the Gaza war only until October 2025. The strikes against Iran, which began Feb. 28, have been dubbed by the IDF as Operation Roaring Lion. Nonetheless, Carlson said Third Temple patches could be commonly found in photos of Israeli soldiers.
However, Behrman stressed, “Many who wear the Temple patches see them as symbols of faith and hope for peace, and a yearning for the day when there will be no more war.”
The belief that a Third Temple’s construction would necessitate the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, has been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. A provocative visit by future Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount sparked the violent Palestinian uprising known as the Second Intifada in 2000. And Hamas justified its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel – which Hamas called the Al-Aqsa flood – with claims that Israel had plans for the mosque’s destruction.
“Chabad has been pushing in a pretty subtle way, unless you look carefully, for the reconstruction of the Third Temple,” Carlson said on YouTube.
Though the security concerns are significant, Chabad leaders also said they found humorous the idea that their famously messianic movement was at all subtle in its desire for a Third Temple.
“The way it affected us on Shabbos is we had the best laugh,” Rabbi Chaim Goldstein, who runs a campus Chabad house at Drexel University in Philadelphia, told RNS. “Regarding the fact we are the ones trying to build the Third Temple, you couldn’t get more true than that — we say it every day in our [prayers]. The [Lubavitcher] rebbe was a big proponent of talking about Mashiach, of [the building of the Temple,] saying we want Mashiach now, that kind of stuff,” he said, using the Hebrew word for the Messiah.
The ultimate coming of the Messiah who would rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and usher in a messianic age of peace and divine understanding is a universal belief across Orthodox Judaism. Four of the 18 blessings of the Amidah, the central core of Judaism’s three daily prayer liturgies, deal with the coming of the Messiah, including the rebuilding of the Temple. However, the vast majority of Orthodox Jews – including Chabad – believe that the coming of the Messiah is in the hands of heaven and will be brought about by religious devotion, not through politics or acts of war.
“You couldn’t get better than Tucker Carlson announcing it to the entire world,” Goldstein said. “The whole world hears now that we are the ones trying to build the Third Temple. May it happen speedily in our days, not through any wars, but through peace.”
It’s a big part of Hasidic theology, and why Chabad is so active in its outreach, providing religious services to Jews around the world and frequently taking to the streets in cities such as New York to entice Jews of all levels of observance into performing religious actions like wrapping tefillin.
“Chabad’s focus is on encouraging mitzvos — good deeds — to bring more goodness into the world and hasten the coming of the Messiah, while living responsibly in the present,” Behrman said on X. “The Messianic vision is one of peace and harmony for all.”
Though the episode put many Chabad families on edge, Behrman noted that the group had also received an outpouring of support since its release.
“There are thousands and thousands of people who have come out and said, ‘I had these beautiful experiences with Chabad,’” Behrman told RNS. “So, we’re also seeing a lot of love and support. The challenge is that good stories and positive stories never have the same traction on social media.”
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