(JTA) — A privately owned Russian television channel reran a documentary from 2012 that claimed the Titanic was sunk partly due to a conspiracy by Jews.
REN-TV aired the anti-Semitic documentary last month, according to the Coordination Forum for Countering anti-Semitism.
The documentary suggested a “group of 300” Jews, freemasons and “illluminati” had sunk the ship in 1912 to provoke an international crisis and install themselves as leaders of a world government, a central theme of anti-Semitism conspiracy theories.
The 2012 version of the documentary used the past tense, suggesting that the attempt was in the past and ultimately unsuccessful. However, REN-TV’s airing was edited to use the present tense, as well as to link the conspiracy to more recent events, including the Chernobyl disaster, 9/11 and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia has already expressed concern about what the rise of such ideas in Russia could mean for the Jewish community.
Separately, the federation on Monday urged Russia’s new education minister, Olga Vasilyeva, to clarify her attitude on the era of terror under Joseph Stalin following statements attributed to her suggesting that she had praised the efficiency of state organizations under the Soviet dictator, Interfax reported.
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