Richard Roberts had a pretty good idea what kind of video Tyler Oliveira was planning to make about Lakewood, his heavily Orthodox town in New Jersey.
After learning of Oliveira’s planned trip, Roberts, a prominent and wealthy Lakewood resident, watched Oliveira’s recent upload, “Inside the New York Town Invaded by Welfare-Addicted Jews…,” in which the YouTube provocateur toured Kiryas Joel, a Hasidic enclave in upstate New York. The portrayal, which garnered nearly 5 million views, was widely condemned as antisemitic.
But Roberts also saw a glimmer of something else in the video. Oliveira had given credit to Kiryas Joel’s volunteer-run ambulance and firefighting services — a sign, Roberts believed, that he might be open to hearing another side. So Roberts extended an invitation for Oliveira to meet with him.
“I think if he was your garden-variety antisemite, he would not give any credit to us at all,” Roberts said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “So I thought that maybe, he’s coming to Lakewood anyway, maybe I’d give him a chance to get the real information, authentic information, from me.”
Roberts invited Oliveira into his home, where the pair sat before Roberts’ 10-foot fish tank for a three-hour-long interview earlier this month. Roberts said he prepared heavily for the interview, expecting the YouTuber to “ambush” him.
“He was looking to cast a negative light on Orthodox Jews, and he had many angles to try to do it,” Roberts said. “He also would exaggerate a lot.”
By Monday, it was clear that Oliveira had left Lakewood with his views largely unchanged.
That’s when he uploaded his latest video, titled, “I Exposed New Jersey’s Jewish Invasion…” It features man-on-the-street encounters and selective interviews that frame local disputes over welfare, land use and political influence as evidence of a broader “Jewish invasion.” Through loaded narration, ominous editing and repeated references to ethnic separatism, he amplifies antisemitic tropes while casting Orthodox Jewish communities as fraudulent drains on public resources. The video quickly reached more than 2.2 million views.
Oliveira portrayed Lakewood as rife with fraud by citing allegations involving Jewish officials in recent years, including a rabbi who was indicted in 2017 on charges of stealing public funds from a school he founded — charges that were later dismissed. He also highlighted the large family sizes common among Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish residents, a factor that has contributed to the township’s high birth rate relative to the rest of the state.
Richard Roberts and Tyler Oliveira sit down for an interview in Lakewood, New Jersey earlier this month. (Screenshot)
If the content was inflammatory, the reaction was revealing. Oliveira’s back-to-back videos on Kiryas Joel and Lakewood have become flashpoints in a widening ideological battle within conservative media.
Oliveira, who has more than 8.8 million YouTube subscribers, first gained virality in 2018 through a collaboration with MrBeast and later built a following on stunt and challenge videos. In recent years, his channel has shifted to what he calls “investigations,” in which he visits communities — from Thailand to Flint, Michigan — to produce exposé-style content. Sometimes the videos probe alleged fraud; other times they ridicule the people he encounters.
His approach mirrors that of fellow YouTuber Nick Shirley, whose reporting on alleged fraud by Somali-run day cares in Minneapolis preceded a federal immigration crackdown and earned him an invitation to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
But while Shirley’s work has drawn praise in some conservative circles, Oliveira’s focus on Orthodox Jews has triggered backlash — including from parts of the right.
After posting the Lakewood video, Oliveira announced that Patreon had removed his account. Some far-right influencers seized on the move as proof of undue Jewish influence within conservative politics.
The antisemitic streamer Sneako wrote on X: “Nick Shirley makes a video about Somali daycares, gets pushed by the entire Peter Thiel/MAGA cabal. Elon, JD Vance, Rumble, all glazing benevolently. Tyler Oliveira exposes how Jews in Jersey scam tax payers … No one says a word.”
Nick Fuentes similarly accused conservatives of applying a double standard. “They actually believe that the rules just shouldn’t apply to Jewish people,” he wrote.
Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District, rejected that framing. “If you can’t tell the difference between fraud and harassment, then you’ve just ‘exposed’ yourself to be an Antisemite,” he posted on X.
The controversy soon widened. A nicotine pouch company owned by Tucker Carlson teased on X, “Chat, should we sponsor Tyler? 👀” in response to Patreon’s removal of Oliveira. That prompted condemnation from Laura Loomer, the far-right Jewish activist, who accused Carlson of “mainstreaming a generation of Jew obsessed podcasters and content creators.”
For Roberts — a self-described “die-hard Republican” who served as vice chairman of the Israel Advisory Committee for Trump’s 2016 campaign — the episode fits into a troubling trend.
“There’s a major financial incentive to be an antisemite, whether it’s expressed as anti-Israel or explicitly as anti-Jewish,” Roberts said. “Tucker, Candace and Nick Fuentes … they’re all profiting on it with no conscience that they’re spreading falsehoods.”
Conservative political commentator and podcast host Tucker Carlson speaks at Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Dec. 18, 2025. (Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)
During the opening of the Lakewood video, Oliveira claims the Orthodox community has sparked “fear” among non-Jewish residents that “their town will soon be turned into little Jerusalem.” He asserts that Jews have “consolidated political power,” depleted public school funding and overwhelmed infrastructure while prioritizing their own community.
Throughout the video, Oliveira approaches Jewish residents in cars and enters local businesses, accusing the community of defrauding welfare systems.
“This is going to make you a lot of money, and it’s going to jump a lot of hatred towards a community that’s seeing a rise in antisemitism that hasn’t been seen in years,” one resident tells him. “Every single day, our lives are at risk.”
Oliveira responds: “You say antisemitism, I saw anti-Goyism,” invoking and reframing the Yiddish term for non-Jews in a way common among far-right influencers.
Roberts described the final product as a “hit piece” that was “feeding an antisemitic crowd.” He said his own interview was “chopped” to fit Oliveira’s narrative, while local activists critical of the Orthodox community were given extended airtime.
Still, he does not regret sitting down for the interview. He hired his own videographer to record the conversation and plans to release the full footage.
“Anyone who wants to see can see,” Roberts said. “There’s going to be lots of things that are presented to him that show the beauty of this community and how the accusations against us are just false, and he just didn’t bother to put them in.”
Keith Krivitzky, managing director of the Jewish Federation of Ocean County, called the video a “blatant attempt to stir animosity towards the Orthodox community in Lakewood.”
“People have choices,” Krivitzky wrote in a statement to (JEWISH REVIEW). “They can advocate for their rights … and they can call out this guy for being a jerk and an antisemite.”
Even after everything, however, Roberts said he stops short of labeling Oliveira an antisemite. He describes him instead as “a provocateur who wants to get clicks.”
“He should rightfully know that he’s going to give fodder to vicious, bigoted, racist antisemites,” Roberts said. “But I don’t think that he’s focused on antisemitism in his own belief system.”
