A French court opened hearings here today on a petition from three members of the Rothschild family for seizure and barring from further circulation of a book called “The Jews,” by best selling novelist Roger Peyrefitte.
The petition was filed by attorneys for Barons Guy and Edmond de Rothschild and their cousin, Baroness Bathsheba Rothschild. They asserted in their brief that the book is “grossly slanderous,” that some of the data in the work are “untrue,” and that the novel has a “clear, slanderous intention.”
The novel, published a month ago and reported to be selling briskly, puts forth the thesis that many “unknown Jews” have been and are at the helm of important governments. Among the “unknown Jews” are or were allegedly President Johnson, the late President Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth of England, French President Charles de Gaulle, Generalissimo Franko, Fidel Castro, West Germany’s former Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, as well as such well-known historic anti-Semites as Torquemada, the 15th Century head of the Catholic Inquisition. The book also “reveals” so-called “secrets” about the Rothschild dynasty.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
