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'A Dangerous Lie: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion' opened in the Gonda Education Center at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in April 2006. See more photographs |
PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION |
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"If ever a piece of writing could produce mass hatred, it is this one. . . . This book is about lies and slander." The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is the most notorious and widely distributed antisemitic publication of modern times. Its lies about Jews, which have been repeatedly discredited, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet. The individuals and groups who have used the Protocols are all linked by a common purpose: to spread hatred of Jews. |
The Protocols is entirely a work of fiction, intentionally written to blame Jews for a variety of ills. Those who distribute it claim that it documents a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. The conspiracy and its alleged leaders, the so-called Elders of Zion, never existed. The Origin of a Lie |
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See more artifacts The Times, August 17, 1921 |
Although the exact origin of the Protocols is unknown, its intent was to portray Jews as conspirators against the state. In 24 chapters, or protocols, allegedly minutes from meetings of Jewish leaders, the Protocols "describes" the "secret plans" of Jews to rule the world by manipulating the economy, controlling the media, and fostering religious conflict. |
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, anti-Bolshevik émigrés brought the Protocols to the West. Soon after, editions circulated across Europe, the United States, South America, and Japan. An Arabic translation first appeared in the 1920s. Beginning in 1920, auto magnate Henry Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, published a series of articles based in part on the Protocols. The International Jew, the book that included this series, was translated into at least 16 languages. Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, later the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, praised Ford and The International Jew. Fraud Exposed The Nazi Era During the 1920s and 1930s, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion played an important part in the Nazis' propaganda arsenal. The Nazi party published at least 23 editions of the Protocols between 1919 and 1939. Following the Nazis' seizure of power in 1933, some schools used the Protocols to indoctrinate students. Fraud Exposed The U.S. Senate issued a report in 1964 declaring that the Protocols were "fabricated." The Senate called the contents of the Protocols "gibberish" and criticized those who "peddled" the Protocols for using the same propaganda technique as Hitler. In 1993, a Russian court ruled that Pamyat, a far-right nationalist organization, had committed an antisemitic act by publishing the Protocols. Despite these repeated exposures of the Protocols as a fraud, it remains the most influential antisemitic text of the past one hundred years, and it continues to appeal to a variety of antisemitic individuals and groups. The Protocols Today In the United States and Europe, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Holocaust deniers endorse and circulate the Protocols. Books based on the Protocols are available worldwide, even in countries with hardly any Jews such as Japan. Many school textbooks throughout the Arab and Islamic world teach the Protocols as fact. Countless political speeches, editorials, and even children's cartoons are derived from the Protocols. In 2002, Egypt's government-sponsored television aired a miniseries based on the Protocols, an event condemned by the U.S. State Department. The Palestinian organization Hamas draws in part on the Protocols to justify its terrorism against Israeli civilians. The Internet has dramatically increased access to the Protocols. Even though many Web sites expose the Protocols as a fraud, the Internet has made it easy to use the Protocols to spread hatred of Jews. Today, a typical Internet search yields several hundred thousand sites that disseminate, sell, or debate the Protocols or expose them as a fraud. |
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