MOSCOW, March 22 (JTA) — The world’s most famous anti-Semitic fabrication is back. Sections of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” were quoted recently on a show broadcast over Belarussian state radio. The show, titled, “The Sacred and the Profane,” called on the listeners to judge the authenticity of the “The Protocols” from its predictions about the current political and economic situation in the former Soviet Union. According to the broadcast, the breakup of the Soviet Union — as well as the economic difficulties Belarus faces — were predicted in the book, a fabrication first printed in the late 19th century that purports to show the existence of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy bent on attaining world domination. Jewish activists protested the broadcast. A reference to “The Protocols” would clearly be considered an anti-Semitic act in a civilized country, said Yakov Basin, who heads the recently founded Belarussian-American Bureau on Human Rights, which is affiliated with the Washington-based Union of Councils for Soviet Jews. Last year, Belarus state television aired a documentary that included the story of an alleged ritual murder of an infant by Jews in the 1600s. The documentary added that the Jews who allegedly committed the crime were “members of a secret fanatical sect” that centuries before had demanded that Jesus be put to death. Jewish groups in Belarus, who generally attempt to keep a low profile, did not protest that broadcast.
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