National Post

Newspaper blames COVID-19 on ‘organized Jewry’

B’nai Brith Canada calls for police probe as hate crime

- Tom Blackwell

A Polish- Canadian newspaper linked to a community group that’s received almost $ 300,000 in government funding, twice published an anti- Semitic tirade recently that suggested COVID- 19 is a creation of “organized Jewry,” and that Jews were the cause of all the world’s ills.

The article has come to light amid warnings worldwide about a unique wave of pandemic- spawned anti- Semitism.

B’nai Brith Canada says it has called on police to investigat­e the newspaper story as a hate crime, alleging it’s a blatant violation of the law.

“To publish something like this in a Canadian newspaper, whether it’s in English or non- English, is criminal,” said Michael Mostyn, CEO of the human- rights group.

“It’s absolutely criminal to pursue this form of hatred.”

“We feel very strongly that this is a case where charges should be laid … We know that hate speech provisions of the Criminal Code are not often used, but this does cross the threshold.”

The commentary appeared first as the leading front- page article in the March 25 edition of Glos Polski, a weekly newspaper based in Toronto that claims to be read by Poles “around the globe.”

Head lined initially “Coronaviru­s, or fake pandemic,” it ran again in the April 22 edition, both times without a byline.

In discussing the origins of COVID-19, the story suggests that “biological weapons are being worked on in the U. S. and Israel not by just any experts, but (under) the leadership of usually Jewish psychopath­s.”

It suggests “organized Jewry” can “laugh their heads off ” at the COVID-19 crisis, and that Jewish social media had manipulate­d the world with “Goebbelsia­n propaganda.”

In a rambling discourse, it also suggests the radical Islamist group ISIL was a Jewish creation to reduce the population of gentiles, that Israel is “the cause of all the world’s woes,” Jews want to create a Judeo-polonia state in Poland and that Jews control the world’s stock markets.

It said Vladimir Lenin, Nazi propagandi­st Joseph Goebbels and Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan were all covert Jews.

The newspaper’s editor, Wieslaw Magiera, could not be reached for comment by deadline.

A promotiona­l page on the polishcana­dians. ca website describes the outlet as a “paper which searches for the Truth, protects the good name of Poles and reminds us of the Polish culture and history.”

The same page says Glos Polski is “edited by” the Polish National Union of Canada. On its website, the Union itself describes the paper as its “press body” and says the two have been inextricab­ly linked since Glos Polski’s launch in 1951.

The Union says it is one of Canada’s largest Polish organizati­ons, formed in part to counter Communist agitation.

It has also benefited from Ontario government largesse in recent years.

The Union received $ 146,000 in 2018-19 from the provincial Trillium Foundation to make renovation­s to a 50- year- old community space, and $ 130,000 in 2012- 2013 to replace a roof on a community centre and buy new energy-efficient kitchen appliances.

The associatio­n could not be reached for comment.

The article seems to be part of an internatio­nal trend in racism tied to COVID-19.

“The ongoing global pandemic has spurred a fast- spreading epidemic of hate speech and disinforma­tion including conspiracy theories with a clear antisemiti­c motive,” said the UN agency UNESCO in June, after holding a webinar on the topic.

“Data from the World Jewish Congress shows that in the first months of the pandemic, there was a 30 per cent increase in antisemiti­c content on social media.”

Mostyn said it is one thing for such hatred to be spread through social media, but worse to see it printed repeatedly in a Canadian newspaper.

 ?? BANDAR ALDANDANI / AFP / Gett
y Images ?? Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman orchestrat­ed a coup of the Saudi throne, which has since been followed by a series of purges.
BANDAR ALDANDANI / AFP / Gett y Images Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman orchestrat­ed a coup of the Saudi throne, which has since been followed by a series of purges.
 ?? Adrian Wyld / the cana dian press files ?? B’nai Brith Canada chief executive Michael Mostyn said it was hurtful
to see hate speech printed in a Canadian newspaper.
Adrian Wyld / the cana dian press files B’nai Brith Canada chief executive Michael Mostyn said it was hurtful to see hate speech printed in a Canadian newspaper.

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