Kanye brings back old anti-Semitic trope.

Kanye West is now implying that his Jewish doctor wanted to/could have poisoned him by simply switching out a pill. (I'm not going to link to the stories, as I don't want to elevate the signal. You'll find it if you google.)

What I want to emphasize here is how incredibly old this specific kind of anti-Semitism is. Many early modern medical practitioners were Sephardic Jews, trained in the sophisticated medicine practiced in the Arab world, who relocated to England after being expelled from Spain and elsewhere. The suspicions that people had about physicians (possible poisoners, prescribers of unnecessary treatments to pick your pocket while keeping you sick, a little too much like witchcraft....) allied with people's hatred for and suspicions of Jews to form a toxic mix.

Whether driven by madness or hatred or a combination of both, Kanye's comments dig right down into this history. And because it is such an old trope, and such a familiar one, it risks sounding "right."

Read up on the case of Elizabeth I's physician, Roderigo Lopes, and take a little time to consider how distressingly contemporary it all sounds.