A Jewish bookseller and member of the Italy-Israel Association said the Turin bookstore he runs has become the target of an anti-Semitic campaign in recent weeks.
So far there have been no violent incidents, Angelo Pezzana told the newspaper La Repubblica, but the campaign has included anti-Semitic slogans scrawled on the windows of the Luxemburg Bookstore, insults hurled at shop assistants and the distribution of leaflets.
Pezzana, an ecology activist and leader of a homosexual organization, said he believes the campaign is the work of ultra-leftists, possibly belonging to the pro-Palestinian Proletarian Democracy Party. He characterized the vandals as “gangs of Nazis.”
The organizers of the leaflet campaign denied the comparison, however, saying that they are anti-Zionist, but not anti-Semitic. In an anonymous written statement, they explained their campaign is “against the massacre of Palestinians and against Pezzana’s pro-Zionist initiatives.”
The campaign has come at a time of increasing anti-Israel sentiment among Italians, especially within left-of-center political parties.
Plainclothes police have put the bookstore under surveillance.
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.
