"Zio"

The anatomy of an anti-Jewish slur

On December 5, 2025, Lynn Boylan, an Irish representative in the European Parliament (MEP) and a member of the Sinn Féin political party tweeted out following statement:

One might not initially know exactly to whom or what Boylan was referring to in her statement. But the use of the word “crawling” seems to suggest that she is using the term “zio” as a pejorative, as if they were insects or common pests. Furthermore, she seems to take delight in knowing that she gets “under their skin,” a sign that she derives some sort of psychological pleasure knowing that these aforementioned “zios” are upset with her.

But who or what is a “zio”?

“Zio,” it must be emphasized, is not merely shorthand term for “Zionist.” Indeed, anyone who suggests as such is either gaslighting the Jewish community or is completely ignorant as to where the term comes from and who popularized it years ago.

Indeed, “zio’ is best understood as a viciously antisemitic slur that was popularized by the American former-KKK activist David Duke and his ideological compatriots as a means of bypassing hate speech filtering on social media. While Duke himself didn’t invent the term, he certainly is responsible for its prominence in extreme right and white supremacist circles.

According to Mosaic Magazine, “zio” didn’t originate as a stand alone term, but as a prefix to other terms, all meant to denigrate Jews: “Nor did the compounded Zio start with the Klan. As far as I’ve been able to determine, its first recorded use was in the term ‘Zionazi,’ which goes back to at least the late 1980s.”

Prominent Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer, in responding to the term “ZioNazi” in South African political discourse, argued that “Zionism here is, as I understand it, equated with Israel as a Jewish state. If the Jews in Israel and their state is ‘Nazi’, then it has to be eradicated. So the term indicates potentially genocidal ideologies. That means it’s clearly antisemitic.” Indeed, one cannot understand how the term “Zio” is wielded by both classical antisemites and contemporary antizionists without reference to Holocaust inversion, the vulgar slight-of-hand trick in which Jews and Zionists are positioned as modern-day Nazis.

Although the slur “Zio” was originally used primarily by right-wing antisemites in the United States, it soon found a home among the progressive antizionist left. Case in point: the 2017 Dyke (lesbian) March in Chicago, in response to Jews objecting to the organization’s decision to ban women from carrying Pride flags with the Star of David on them, tweeted the following: “Zio tears replenish my electrolytes.” Embedded in this morally grotesque tweet is not only an antisemitic worldview, but also the sign that the Chicago Dyke March also gained some sort of perverse psychological pleasure in mocking Jews and hurting them emotionally.

As the Forward pointed out at the time, the term was indeed popularized by David Duke. before it made its way to the Chicago Dyke March:

“ ‘Zio,’ however, didn’t become a common anti-Semitic slur until Duke made it famous over the past decade. A search of Duke’s radio archives reveals that ‘Zio’ has been used 359 times in episode descriptions since January 2012, with 17 mentions in 2017. A search of ‘Zio’ on Duke’s website yields 264 pages of results since 2002.”

According to Aryeh Tuchman of the Anti-Defamation League, the term “Zio” was used as a means of establishing what he calls plausible deniability. “ ‘Zio’ has been used by people who are hardened and overt anti-Semites as a way of attacking Jews while maintaining what they think is plausible deniability, and as a result, it has become a slur in some communities.” This is a quite apt observation and one that explains very well why the term has become so popular among antizionists who often go to great pains to demonstrate that they aren’t antisemitic.

For years, the term “zio” has been used as a rhetoric weapon with comparative little pushback. That, however, might be changing. Just recently, an Oxford University student in England who called for putting “zios in the ground” was charged with a criminal offense, specifically regarding racial hatred.

It is past time that more judicial systems recognize that “Zio” is not merely a crass shorthand for “Zionists,” but a deeply vicious slur that is meant to stir up racial hatred against the Jewish people.

The fact that it was recently employed in Irish political discourse without any notable pushback is both deeply troubling and indicative of a larger systemic problem.