Epstein Files Reveal Maxwell Family Pushed for Google Censorship | Headline USA

(José Niño, Headline USA)  The Justice Department’s release of millions of Epstein investigation documents has brought renewed attention to a 2004 controversy over online antisemitism, revealing correspondence from Elisabeth Maxwell addressing the issue.

Chris Menahan of Information Liberation observed on Twitter, “Epstein Files: Elisabeth Maxwell—the wife of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert—circulates a petition to “Friends of Israel” in 2004 demanding Google censor the “anti-Semitic” site “JewWatch” to keep it from appearing as the number one search result for “Jew.”

“(This succeeded, eventually.)”

Epstein Files: Elisabeth Maxwell—the wife of Ghislaine Maxwell’s father, Robert—circulates a petition to “Friends of Israel” in 2004 demanding Google censor the “anti-Semitic” site “JewWatch” to keep it from appearing as the number one search result for “Jew.”

(This succeeded,… pic.twitter.com/SjJXdia1Yy

— Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 (@infolibnews) February 1, 2026

Elisabeth Maxwell, the widow of media mogul Robert Maxwell and mother of convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, sent an email to contacts she addressed as “Friends of Israel” urging them to sign a petition demanding Google remove the antisemitic website JewWatch from its search results.

The email, dated April 10, 2004, expressed shock that searching the word “Jew” on Google returned JewWatch as the top result. “I was shocked to receive the information below which I have verified myself,” Elisabeth wrote, urging recipients to add their names to a petition seeking 50,000 signatures.

Maxwell, who devoted her later life to Holocaust education and Christian Jewish dialogue, framed the issue as a matter of combating racial hatred. “Spreading racial hatred cannot be tolerated in any form and anti semitism is one of the most virulent form with very well known consequences as the Holocaust has amply demonstrated,” she wrote.

The 2004 controversy centered on how Google’s algorithm elevated JewWatch, a website established in 1998 by Frank Weltner that promoted Holocaust denial and antisemitic theories about politics. The site ranked first despite having relatively few backlinks because antisemites frequently used “Jew” as anchor text when linking to it, while mainstream Jewish organizations typically avoided that standalone term.

At the time, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that New York real estate investor Steven Weinstock launched the RemoveJewWatch petition campaign that Elisabeth referenced in her email. The petition gathered over 50,000 signatures from people demanding Google remove the site entirely from its index, per a report by ABC News at the time. 

Google co-founder Sergey Brin, himself Jewish, faced intense pressure but maintained the company’s position against manual intervention. “I certainly am very offended by the site, but the objectivity of our rankings is one of our very important principles,” Brin stated at the time.

Rather than removing JewWatch, Google added explanatory notes about how its algorithm works and why offensive results sometimes appear. Jewish organizations subsequently launched a counter campaign creating numerous links using “Jew” as anchor text pointing to Wikipedia’s article on Judaism, successfully displacing the hate site from the top position.

Elisabeth Maxwell was 83 years old when she circulated the petition email. Born to French Protestant parents, she married British Army Captain Robert Maxwell in 1945 and later discovered through genealogical research that over 300 of her husband’s relatives had perished in the Holocaust.

This discovery transformed her into a respected Holocaust scholar who founded the journal Holocaust and Genocide Studies in 1987 and organized major international conferences on Holocaust remembrance. She served as the first female vice president of the International Council of Christians and Jews and held an honorary fellowship at Cambridge’s Woolf Institute.

The email’s inclusion in the Epstein files reflects the extensive documentation of the Maxwell family’s activities and connections. Robert Maxwell received a state funeral in Israel after his mysterious 1991 death, with multiple sources alleging intelligence connections. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted in 2021 of sex tfrafficking for her role facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse.

The January 30, 2026 Justice Department release comprised 3.5 million pages pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act. The disclosure included correspondence, flight logs, financial records, and investigative materials spanning two decades.

The release faced immediate criticism for redaction failures that exposed victim identities and for representing only about half the potentially responsive documents federal authorities had identified.

The link to the file from Elisabeth Maxwell’s email can be found here. 

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino