Arthur Bloom is an investigative reporter and an associate of Tucker Carlson. He was the managing editor of Modern Age. Bloom has written for The Washington Post, The American Conservative, The Guardian, The Daily Caller, and Newsweek.
On April 27, 2026, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a federal jury returned a decisive verdict in my favor and in favor of XRVision, Ltd. The case was Apelbaum et al. v. Bloom, Civil Action No. 1:25-cv-00147-MSN-WBP.
The jury found the defamatory statements actionable, found actual malice, and awarded damages totaling $800,000: $300,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. The special verdict form reflects findings for both XRVision and me across the challenged statements.
Bloom’s attacks were not criticisms. They were not reporting. They were vile, foaming-at-the-mouth antisemitism dressed up as political analysis, a reputational hit job built around one of the oldest weapons ever used against Jews: the accusation of hidden loyalty, foreign control, secret influence, and conspiracy.
The smear was direct. Bloom’s article did not merely hint. It branded me an “Israeli spy.” It dragged XRVision into the same fabricated narrative. It tried to turn a Jewish tech professional and his company into villains in a conspiracy story built from accusation, innuendo, and ethnic suspicion.
This was not a mistake. It was a modern blood libel in political clothing.
The old libels have changed costumes, but not structure. Earlier antisemites accused Jews of poisoning wells, stealing children, practicing ritual murder, and secretly controlling rulers. The modern version accuses Jews of intelligence penetration, child trafficking, slavery, theft, sabotage, fraud, foreign-agent activity, and corrupt control over public affairs. The method is the same: invent the Jewish villain, attach him to every fear of the moment, and then pretend the fantasy is evidence.
Bloom followed that script. He took a Jewish professional, branded him a foreign spy, suggested hidden manipulation, and tried to make my company radioactive by association.
Months earlier, the court had already rejected Bloom’s attempt to escape the case at the motion-to-dismiss stage. The court held that accusing a cybersecurity professional and his firm of acting as an agent of a foreign intelligence agency could prejudice them in their profession and trade. The court also addressed the actual-malice issue, noting allegations that Bloom relied on anti-Jewish tropes, failed to conduct a proper investigation, made no effort to contact XRVision or me, and forced the facts into a preconceived narrative about Israelis and Jews.
The jury then went further. It found liability. It found actual malice. It awarded compensatory damages. And it awarded punitive damages.
This verdict sends a message: “free speech” is not a license to fabricate lies. “Opinion” is not a safe harbor for antisemitic defamation dressed up as insinuation. “Commentary” is not a magic word that turns a smear into protected speech. And “reporting” is not journalism when the writer starts with a Jew-shaped conspiracy theory and then hammers the facts until they fit.