The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a 1903 forgery by the Tsarist police, purports to be the record of how a cabal of rich and powerful Jews plot to take over the world, and succeed in doing so. The Protocols is widely recognized as “probably the most influential work of antisemitism ever written.” Now the disturbing news comes that Edizioni Segno, a small publishing house in Italy, has just published a new Italian translation of the Protocols. A report on this disturbing event appeared here: “‘The Plots of 120 Years Ago Have Been Realized’: Anger in Italy as Publishing House Issues New Edition of Notorious Antisemitic Fabrication,” by Ben Cohen, Algemeiner, November 5, 2021:
Italy’s Jewish community has expressed disgust at the publication of a new edition of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” an antisemitic document originally fabricated by the Russian Tsar’s secret police in 1903, which is available through the online store of Feltrinelli, one of the country’s leading publishers.
The publisher’s blurb promoting the latest edition made no mention of the dubious provenance of the “Protocols,” which has been cited across more than a century by the German Third Reich, successive Arab regimes and western neo-Nazis and white supremacists as proof of a secret Jewish conspiracy to control world affairs.
“From the beginning they have been branded as a brilliant fake and there are many reasons for and against, especially from those who wish to bury them permanently, thereby contributing to their incredible survival,” read the caption that accompanies the book.
There are not “many reasons for and against” believing in the authenticity of the Protocols. To state that is to mislead the unwary, who may not know that the Protocols were exposed as fraudulent by the British newspaper The Times in 1921 and the German Frankfurter Zeitung in 1924.
The promotional text [by the Protocols’ publishing house Segno] then went on to claim that whether the “Protocols” had been fabricated or not was an irrelevant consideration because its predictions had turned out to be correct.
“Whether they are true or false no longer matters, because these mysterious protocols, even out of their time, have proved to be prophetic in a secular sense,” it continued. “After nearly 120 years, many of those plots, then only vague, seem to be largely realized: history confirms that the recorded notes which we present in a new and revised translation show that they were not pious fantasies.”
Segno, then, is declaring itself satisfied that it does not matter if the Protocols were a forgery or not, because the book’s predictions came true. That can only mean one thing — that the world is indeed now being controlled by a powerful Jewish cabal. But there is a contradiction here: if that Jewish cabal controls the world, how is it that a small publishing house in Italy manages to defy that cabal and reprint, and sell, The Protocols? The publisher, Catherine Montero, doesn’t say.
The latest Italian edition of the “Protocols,” which carries a large Star of David on its cover, has been issued by Segno Editions, a publisher that bills itself as a “small, independent house specializing in religious publications” and a “leader in the Christian publishing sector.” Its books can be purchased through the online store of Feltrinelli, which is known as one of Europe’s leading publishers of left-wing politics and culture….
The “religious publications” Segno puts out are no doubt written by Catholics of the far-right antisemitic variety, akin to the infamous American priest, Father Charles Coughlin, whose radio rants about the Jews were so popular in the 1930s. It is fascinating that Ediz. Segno manages to sell its books through the online store of Feltrinelli, a much larger publisher, and famously left-wing. The late Giangiacomo Feltrinelli was himself a Communist. It is not possible that the editors at Feltrinelli were unaware of what antisemitic and dangerous lies the Protocols contained. We can only assume that they didn’t care, as long as selling the Segno books at their online store made them money. Left-wing these salon Bolsheviks may claim to be, but in selling the Protocols, they demonstrate that their only morality is making money. Or perhaps they were not indifferent but, even worse, were left-wing antisemities themselves, akin to our Congressional squadroons.
Ediz. Feltrinelli wants us to believe it has no responsibility – it’s outside its “competence” – to monitor what books are being sold, or how they are being described by their publishers, at its online store; it has no duty, Feltrinelli claims, to warn potential buyers that a particular work for sale is a forgery that has been responsible for spreading murderous antisemitism. Feltrinelli must not be allowed to get away with this. Once it has allowed a publisher to sell through its online store, Feltrinelli has to perform due diligence to make sure that forgeries sold on its online store are identified as such, and antisemitic forgeries require still more information, including the tragic consequences of their disseminated lies. Feltrinelli cannot simply ignore its duty by claiming such judgements are not within “its competence.” I presume it would not carry Hitler’s Mein Kampf, nor such racist tracts as Madison Grant’s The Passing of of the Great Race at its online store. Why does Feltrinelli double down in claiming it has no responsibility to vet what is sold on that store? What Feltrinelli should have done, when the republication of the Protocols by Segno first became the subject of furious outcry, was to announce that regrettably, it had not performed due diligence, had not realized the Protocols were on sale at its online store, but that it, and any similar antisemitic works, would be promptly removed from the online store, for “Feltrinelli is not going to be used to disseminate racist lies that have been responsible for the deaths of many innocents.”
Edizioni Segno later confirmed that it would fix the description to make clear that the Protocols were fabricated, claiming that the offending blurb was an oversight.
How could that blurb by Segno have conceivably been merely an “oversight”? It was not a matter of a few slipshod words hastily composed, but a carefully crafted statement showing a determination to have the Protocols taken seriously because, according to Segno’s blurb, “whether they are true or false no longer matters, because these mysterious protocols, even out of their time, have proved to be prophetic in a secular sense. After nearly 120 years, many of those plots, then only vague, seem to be largely realized: history confirms that the recorded notes which we present in a new and revised translation show that they were not pious fantasies.”
So according to their publisher, Segno, the Protocols were not “fantasies,” but have been proven correct. “Many of those plots” by Jews that it describes – of cabals of rich and powerful Jews coming to rule the world – “seem to be largely realized: history confirms that the recorded notes….were not pious fantasies.” The publisher, Ediz. Segno, clearly has no doubts that Jews now rule much of the world, just as predicted in the Protocols.
However, Cristina Mantero, the head of the publishing house, appeared to undermine that statement by telling the newspaper La Repubblica that the purpose of the new edition of the Protocols — a project initiated by her late father — was “to test whether its projections for the future had come to pass.”…
And she has no doubt that those Jewish plots – “the projections of the future” is how she describes them – indeed came to pass, just as the original blurb says. She doesn’t even care if they are a “forgery.” What counts is whether, despite being a forgery, the predictions of the Protocols have come true. She, like her father, Piero Manero, before her, believes that they have.
Magazine Mosaico, an online Italian Jewish publication, reported on Friday that it had searched Edizioni Segno’s back catalog and found another antisemitic book on a similar theme. Titled The Shadow of Samael, the book was categorized with the label “freemasonry.” Published in 2018, it purports to examine “the latest developments regarding the Jewish question, with a focus on the power structure that from time immemorial has conditioned political events and consequently our own lives.”
The Protocols, then, are not the only antisemitic tract Edizioni Segno has published. The Shadow of Samael apparently has to do with factitious connections between Jews and Freemasons – a staple of antisemitic propaganda for more than two centuries — and with the “Jewish question,” which has only ever been a “question” for antisemites.
It is not enough for protests to be coming in from Jews and non-Jews in Italy about this publication of the Protocols. The outraged — of whom there are many — need to let Edizioni Feltrinelli know that they will not be buying any books from its online store, as long as even a single work published by Segno – and not just the Protocols — continues to be sold at the Feltrinelli online store. Such a boycott is the only way to get Feltrinelli’s attention, and force it to change its ways. As to Cristina Mantero, a boycott of all of her publishing house’s books, wherever they are sold, would be the right response to her flogging of antisemitic wares.
mortimer says
THE PROTOCOLS OF ZION were written for people without intellectual honesty or the ability of critical thought. It is important that the document be available to scholars so it may be analyzed. However, any edition should carry a ”mental health” warning such as that on cigarette packages.
Both the Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ and the Koran are obvious hoaxes and preposterous forgeries. They appeal to authoritarians, because they teach people NOT to think for themselves.
Muslims show their naivety in accepting BOTH of these texts uncritically, showing that Islam suppresses independence, intellectual honesty and critical thought.
The Protocols of Zion and the Koran are forgeries meant to defend absolutism by creating an urgent need for GENOCIDE on the basis of religion. Muslims have shown themselves chronically incapable of determining the difference between an authentic document and obvious forgeries like the KORAN, the hadiths and the PROTOCOLS. The Koran, hadiths and the ‘Protocols’ don’t stand up to even the least stringent standards of verification. In fact, all three have no PROVENANCE … that is the first red flag.
The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is the most notorious and widely distributed anti-Semitic publication of modern times. Its lies about Jews, which have been repeatedly discredited, continue to circulate today, especially on the Internet. The individuals and groups who have used the Protocols are all linked by a common purpose: to spread hatred of Jews.
In 1935, a Swiss court fined two Nazi leaders for circulating a German-language edition of the Protocols in Berne, Switzerland. The presiding justice at the trial declared the Protocols “LIBELOUS,” “OBVIOUS FORGERIES,” and “RIDICULOUS NONSENSE.”
The U.S. Senate issued a report in 1964 declaring that the Protocols were “fabricated.” The Senate called the contents of the Protocols “gibberish” and criticized those who “peddled” the Protocols for using the same propaganda technique as Hitler.
In 1993, a Russian court ruled that Pamyat, a far-right nationalist organization, had committed an antisemitic act by publishing the Protocols.
According to the U.S. Department of State’s “Report on Global Anti-Semitism” (2004), “The clear purpose of the [Protocols is] to incite hatred of Jews and of Israel.”
Muslims are unable to tell the difference between fact and fiction. The Koran and Protocols fall apart like a house of cards when examined
Thomas Syseskey says
Someone should tell them that the Learned Elders of Zion have are retiring and moving to Florida in the US, the French or Spensh Riviera in Western Europe, Russia’s Riveria on the Black Sea, or Israel’s on the Mediterranean at Netanya.
See https://forward.com/culture/103587/elders-of-zion-to-retire
RonaldB says
It’s great to publish Robert Spencer’s books on the aggressiveness and falsity of Muslim texts.
But, let’s boycott and suppress any publication purporting to show the aggressiveness and falsity of Jewish texts. I’m really, really anxious to have the truth or falsity of publications decided for me by parliamentary votes.
libertyORdeath says
Im with you on rejecting the banning of just about any book, especially one so important to our history, but I agree with mortimer that it should come with a foreward explaining the origins and obvious falsehoods contained within.
On the other hand, the “Protocols” is less a critique of Judaism or it’s scriptures than obvious propaganda. Comparing it to Mr. Spencer’s well researched and accurate critique of islam is apples and oranges.
gravenimage says
Agreed, libertyORdeath.
gravenimage says
Ronald, we have every right to point this ugliness out–the implication that critically noting that they are publishing this forgery is ergo a call for state censorship is mistaken.
Criticizing the speech of others is in fact a core part of freedom of speech.
RonaldB says
“It is important that the document be available to scholars so it may be analyzed. However, any edition should carry a ”mental health” warning such as that on cigarette packages.”
“In 1935, a Swiss court fined two Nazi leaders for circulating a German-language edition of the Protocols in Berne, Switzerland. ”
Mandating that a book carry a warning label is state interference with freedom of the press. It’s not so far from mandating a warning to just saying, “this cannot be distributed in public media”. In fact, the article carries an approving note about fining people for distributing the Protocols.
The state has very little business mandating the contents of publications. They are afraid that people less intelligent than themselves will be taken in by the publication, which the censors are too intelligent to believe.
There’s a small group of people who will believe any anti-Semitic claims they read. They are natural anti-Semites. You can paste all the warning stickers you want. Other than that, with the humongous unanimity of opinion in the mass media, they can take it on themselves to debunk the Protocols without a censorship mandate from the state. Or, are they afraid to take on even as comical a hoax as the Protocols on an equal basis?
mgoldberg says
not any publication purporting to show….. but a documented( thoroughly) by multiple investigations
and not by their friends but others too, for a 100yrs, showing the utter falsity and perfidy involved with that concocted manual of lies.
RonaldB says
Huh? Either you’re a poor reader or you’re trying to slip in a charge that Jewish texts are manuals of lies.
My phrase “purporting to show” referred to a “publication purporting to show the aggressiveness and falsity of Jewish texts”.
gravenimage says
In Italy, a New Edition of ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’
………..
Disgusting. And this scurrilous pack of lies about Jews is most popular with Muslims.