Police complaint filed after local ethnic paper with anti-Semitic history says pandemic was created by ‘Organized Jewry.’
B’nai Brith Canada filed a criminal complaint with Toronto Police this week after a local Polish-language newspaper twice blamed the COVID-19 pandemic on a sinister Jewish plot.
The paper Głos Polski published an article titled “Coronavirus, or the Fake Pandemic” on its front page in the March 25 edition and then ran the story again on April 22.
Aside from blaming COVID-19 on the Jewish community, the article also asserts that “ISIS/ISIL terrorists [were] brought into evil existence by organized Jewry and completely controlled by it,” and claims that Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin, Nazi fanatic Joseph Goebbels and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were all secretly Jewish.
The piece also describes Israel as “the cause of all the world’s woes” and “an emanation of the Devil himself,” while simultaneously alleging that Jews intend to take over Poland and create “Judeo-Polonia.”
The national Jewish organization turned to the police demanding action.
“Propagating the lie that Jews are responsible for COVID-19 must be met with criminal charges, especially when someone does so repeatedly,” said B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn. “This horrifying pandemic has killed thousands of Canadians, ravaged our economy and turned our lives upside-down. Blaming it all on an already disproportionately targeted minority group is loathsome, not to mention a recipe for disaster.”
In June, Andrzej Kumor, the publisher of a different Polish-language outlet based in the Greater Toronto Area, was arrested, warned and released without charge after also publishing a string of anti-Semitic articles.
Głos Polski editor Wiesław Magiera joined Kumor as unsuccessful candidates for the far-right Konfederacja party in Poland’s October 2019 parliamentary elections.
