The John Birch Society has found a vehicle for its propaganda and literature in Australia to the concern of that country’s 70, 000 Jews, an Australian Jewish leader reported here to the World Jewish Congress. Isi Leibler, member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and chairman of the Public Relations Committee of the Victoria Jewish Board of Deputies, met with WJC officials here during a brief stopover on his way back to Australia.
“What we are concerned about, ” Mr. Leibler reported, “is the coalescence of extreme right-wing and anti-Semitic groups in Australia around a right-wing journal which is disseminating John Birch Society propaganda and literature; ” He identified the journal as the “Australian National News Review” which appears in magazine format in Sidney, “It is sympathetic to the John Birch line and is reported to have a circulation of 17, 000,” Mr. Leibler said.
He stated that one of the persons reportedly closely associated with the publication is Eric Butler, national director of the Australian League of Rights, Mr. Leibler said that Butler was a known anti-Semite of long standing and the author of an anti-Semitic work on the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion. ” Mr. Leibler reported that a bookshop run by Butler in Melbourne was a center for the distribution of anti-Semitic literature and a focal point for right-wing, racist, pro-apartheid and former European Fascist elements.
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.
