Berklee Professor Fired After Calling Jewish Temples “Synagogues of Satan”

A professor at the prestigious Berklee College of Music — often compared to The Juilliard School in Manhattan — has been fired after years of antisemitic comments surfaced, with the African American professor now, surprisingly, claiming that he himself is the victim of antisemitism.

Berklee College of Music has fired their Brass Department Chair, Nicholas Payton, only months after promoting him to the position. While the school says it cannot comment on “personnel matters,” it did confirm that Payton had been terminated.

Payton, 51, considers himself a “social activist” in music. His unique commentaries on Black music — such as arguing that “jazz” is a slur and referring to it instead as #BlackAfricanMusic (BAM) — have earned him a place on numerous podcasts and nearly 50,000 Instagram followers.

But in a recent online spat with another musician, it came to light that Payton had a history of making and endorsing antisemitic statements — a pattern Berklee reportedly addressed with him back in 2022. As I reported last month, Payton had publicly endorsed the claim that Jews are “vile predators,” among other inflammatory remarks, as outlined below.

According to Peter Himmelman’s research, Payton said in 2020 that Jews were “vile predators” and blamed them for the Transatlantic Slave Trade. He suggested that the majority of slave owners in America were Jewish — a claim with no historical basis.

“Jewish slave dealers operated in every place slavery existed,” he wrote.

Elsewhere, Payton referred to Jewish houses of worship as “a synagogue of Satan.”

“All these so-called Jews mad, because how dare I make them face the facts of their sordid past and present… Expose how Jewish people have exploited us. Apologize for it and atone and do better,” he said.

He also blamed Jews for their alleged control of the media:

“Amazing how Jews always have a ‘negligible’ role in every historic horror that they’ve been irrefutably associated with… but Jews, magically, are clean as a whistle! INCREDIBLE!”

“They still control a large portion of the media and entertainment industry. And I maintain their history in the music business has often been oppressive.”

“Is it all Jews? No. It’s never all of anybody, but while we are assessing oppressive forces, it’s important to note.”

According to WBUR, he also posted a video referencing Jews being “obsessed with blood.”

These comments culminated in a petition demanding Payton’s firing, which gathered over 5,000 signatures.

The petition reads:

“Mr. Payton has made numerous public statements, over the course of years, that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories and hate speech,” wrote Adam Taylor Young, a Jewish young adult who created the petition.

Young continued:

“Payton’s remarks have not been subtle, implied, or context-dependent. They are explicit and repeated, and they were published in plain view on his social media accounts.

“Despite this, Berklee appointed him to a leadership role that gives him influence over students and curriculum.”

Ironically, after being fired, Payton took to Instagram to profess his innocence — claiming that he is actually a victim of antisemitism. (Let’s be clear: Payton is an African American man who does not appear to claim Jewish identity or practice Judaism.)

Six days ago, he feigned ignorance regarding the nature of his comments:

“@EliseStefanik… can you tell me what I said is antisemitic?… the real irony here is that I’m actually the victim of antisemitism. go figure.”

He also posted:

“i was a great teacher. i was a great chair and enjoyed my job. i will still be an artist, it’s the students who will lose.”

A mother of a Berklee student who signed the petition against Payton spoke to me on condition of anonymity.

“I 1000% don’t think it’s OK for the school to keep employing Nicholas Payton. I feel like if he was targeting any other group — Black people, Asians, or transgender people — it would absolutely not be tolerated.

“So it’s very frustrating that it’s being tolerated when he’s attacking Jews.”

Nicholas Payton’s antisemitic behavior now places him among a growing list of academics fired for antisemitism, including UPenn cartoonist Dwayne Booth, Harvard librarian Nicholas Tuttle, and most notably, Maura Finkelstein of Muhlenberg College — who was terminated despite holding tenure, long considered the gold standard of job security in academia.

Finkelstein’s firing became a cause célèbre, drawing the attention of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the leading academic free speech watchdog in the United States.

Why Payton now considers himself a victim of antisemitism remains unclear.

Recently, it has become more common on TikTok for some African American men to claim victimhood of antisemitism — often tied to ideological identification with the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. However, Payton has not responded to any inquiries.

This report was brought to you by Toni Airaksinen, Senior Editor of Liberty Affair and an independent journalist based in Boca Raton, Florida. Follow her on X @Toni_Airaksinen, and on Instagram.