It’s the same damn story they’ve had for centuries. Fo’serious.
Take Venice, 16th century. It was about as close to the “liberal elite” as you can get in that time period: a republic, and a wealthy one at that. They were proud of being accepting of people from all over the place. It was the Renaissance equivalent of New York City. You could be from anywhere, you could be anyone, and you would fall under the same laws as anyone else.
Unless you were a Jew. You couldn’t own land, you couldn’t run certain kinds of businesses (mostly you could be a pawnbroker, a moneylender, or a doctor; there were very few other possibilities), you had to live in this particular part of town called (surprise) a ghetto, you even had to wear a particular piece of clothing signifying your Jewishness. So, Jewish moneylender? Obviously just cares about money, or why would he be a moneylender? Jewish doctor? Why is he so interested in people’s bodies? Don’t take your kids to him, I hear they use Christian babies in their evil Jewish rituals. Follow the logic there?
But that’s the bad old days, right? Have you noticed that moneylender and doctor business? For centuries in more than one place those were pretty much the options Jewish people had. One upon a time they weren’t really positions of prestige, but as times changed the positions of bankers and doctors became more respected.
The media is a similar universe to that of moneylending and doctoring. When those industries started, Jewish people were able to make a living there. At the time, just like doctoring and moneylending were once, they were careers on the periphery of society. You could make money, but you were always ‘other’. Then, just like doctoring and moneylending, they changed from ‘jobs you can’t get good honest white folks to do’ to prestige positions… all seemingly filled with Jews who wouldn’t stand aside to let decent white folks in. They became successful and part of the establishment in America, and so the old hatred of the greedy Jew transformed neatly into the new hatred of the powerful Jew.
And why have they always been hated? For a few reasons, many of which boil down to the simple fact that they don’t want to bury themselves in the culture of the countries they go to. They take pride in their differences, make them holy. Anything that isn’t just like us is dangerous, after all. You never know what they’ll do, what they’re thinking when they look at you. They’ll probably take offense if you spit on them, too.
(Yes, I did just read The Merchant of Venice recently, why do you ask?)