Gerald L.K. Smith, the notorious hate monger has accused the American Jewish Congress of blocking the road to his Christ-of-the-Ozarks statue and Passion Play amphitheater–and Congress doesn’t mind at all, a spokesman for the AJCongress said today. Smith recently told the Associated Press that AJCongress had led an organized “conspiracy” to stop a Federal grant for the construction of a road leading to his Eureka Springs, Ark. project. An AJCongress spokesman denied the conspiracy charge but said the organization was otherwise “delighted” to accept Smith’s accusation. When reports of the pending Federal grant–$182,000–reached AJCongress late last year, it issued a protest to Transportation Secretary John A. Volpe and Commerce Secretary Maurics Stans asserting that it would be “monstrous” for the Federal government to assist Smith’s bigotry. On June 21 the Commerce Department announced its decision to withhold approval for construction of the road. Smith declared that his attorney would give the Justice Department the names of “11 to 16” persons who he said had participated in a “conspiracy of organized Jews” against the road project. He linked this with a worldwide plot “to prevent Christian people from observing Christ’s last days on earth.” His Passion Play is modelled on the Oberammergau Passion Play in Bavaria, West Germany, which has been condemned as anti-Semitic by Christians as well as Jews and has been the subject of AJCongress protests since 1966.
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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.
