Jewish institutions are on high alert after Tucker Carlson falsely claimed on his podcast Wednesday that the Chabad-Lubavitch movement is behind the war in Iran.

Carlson claimed that Chabad is orchestrating a religious war aimed at destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City so that the Third Temple could be rebuilt in its place.

“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.

Chabad, a sect of Hasidic Judaism known for its global religious outreach and houses on hundreds of college campuses, does not function as a political advocacy organization. Its teachings describe the rebuilding of the Third Temple as part of a future messianic redemption achieved through acts of mitzvot — not a project to be advanced through modern warfare or the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

“To blame it on a Hasidic movement based in Brooklyn that just goes around the world, spreading Judaism, spreading love, spreading kindness, it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Yossi Farro, a member of the Chabad movement known for wrapping tefillin with celebrities, told the Forward in a phone interview. “He’s appealing to people that have never heard of Chabad and now, their first opinion is, this is horrible, these people are warmongers — which is the exact opposite of what we represent.”

The right-wing podcaster Candace Owens amplified the claim, posting to X, “Tucker is...

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