From where comes the dual loyalty accusation, the notion that Jews can never really be trusted as their allegiance is first and foremost to their nation, and at what time periods does it resurface? The second question is far more important to answer than the first because anti-Jewish hostility has historically been a manifestation of societies undergoing profound political, social, or national crises. Put differently, the argument I put forth is that the proliferation of the dual-loyalty accusation is itself evidence of a nation struggling with its own identity and by extension, legitimacy. Consider the historical record, punctuated by acute episodes of anti-Jewish animus and, more specifically, accusations of dual loyalty: the emancipation of French Jewry, accompanied by the famous declaration that Jews should be granted everything as individuals but nothing as a nation; the Dreyfus Affair; the emergence of modern antisemitism in Germany, where Wilhelm Marr warned that the “Semitic” people would transform Germany into a “New Palestine”; Stalin's postwar campaign against Jews as a “fifth column,” particularly following Golda Meir's arrival in Moscow in 1948; and, finally, the contemporary resurgence of dual-loyalty accusations among factions of the American right, where Jews are increasingly accused of failing to put “America First.” What matters most about these episodes is not simply that Jews were accused of disloyalty, but the historical circumstances in which those accusations emerged.The emancipation of French Jewry in 1791 unfolded amid the French Revolution (1789–1799), one of the most tumultuous periods in French history, when the very meaning of citizenship and national belonging was being redefined. The Dreyfus Affair erupted in a France still grappling with the political and psychological consequences of its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Modern antisemitism emerged in Germany during a period of profound economic, political, and social upheaval. The timing is particularly revealing: Germany had only recently become a unified nation, and the question of who truly belonged to that nation remained deeply contested. In the postwar Soviet Union, Stalin's anti-Jewish campaigns intensified as the regime sought to consolidate its authority and assert its supremacy in the emerging Cold War, amid deep anxieties about ideological loyalty and foreign influence. Which brings us to the present and the ugly resurgence of dual-loyalty accusations haunting segments of the American conservative movement. To be sure, the rise of “America First” sentiment must be understood against the backdrop of failed immigration policies and a country increasingly anxious about preserving its borders, sovereignty, and national identity. But it is precisely this context that makes the renewed accusation of Jewish dual loyalty so revealing. The charge of dual loyalty hurled at American Jews today should therefore be understood not as evidence of a Jewish problem, but as a symptom of an American one—an indicator of a nation experiencing a crisis of legitimacy. The question, then, is not why Jews are once again being accused of divided allegiances, but what the resurgence of that accusation tells us about the condition of America itself.