A Polish-language newspaper in Toronto has published an article blaming Jews for the coronavirus pandemic, JTA reported on Thursday.
B’nai Brith Canada has filed a police complaint over the article published twice by the Głos Polski weekly, according to the report.
“Propagating the lie that Jews are responsible for COVID-19 must be met with criminal charges, especially when someone does so repeatedly,” said Michael Mostyn, the CEO of B’nai Brith Canada.
According to B’nai Brith, the article blamed the coronavirus pandemic on the Jewish community, claimed Jews were responsible for the creation of ISIS, and called Israel the source of the world’s problems and “an emanation of the Devil himself.”
The article also claimed that communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were actually Jewish.
Anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise in Canada in recent years. In April, the League for Human Rights, part of B’nai Brith Canada, said it recorded 2,207 anti-Semitic incidents in its 2019 Annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents.
The number marks an 8% increase over the 2,041 incidents from the previous year and an average of more than six per day.