BERLIN (JTA) — A European rabbinical group is protesting a mobile app of the notorious anti-Semitic text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Brussels-based Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement Tuesday that he would contact Apple to urge that the company remove the app. JTA’s calls to Apple were not immediately answered.
The app, which was released earlier this year, is available only in Arabic and is attributed to the software developer Ahmed Elserety.
It costs $1.08 to download and is accompanied by a compact description of the "Protocols" stating that "according to many historians, these writings are a hoax." The text describes a supposed Jewish plot to control the world.
The app notes a 1921 investigation by the Times of London and a series of French articles describing how the fraud was perpetrated.
Still, Goldschmidt said, it is unacceptable to have such an app on the market.
Goldschmidt believes it is "the first mobile version of the famous anti-Semitic work," which was first published in Russia in the early 20th century.
“Although the Protocols of the Elders of Zion can and should be available for academics to study in its proper context, to disseminate such hateful invective as a mobile app is dangerous and inexcusable,” he said, warning that it could be "used by anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists and their fellow travelers to pursue their
racist agenda."
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