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AJC Ad Calls On Booksellers to Stop Marketing Notorious Anti-Semitic Forgery
April 18, 2000
The American Jewish Committee
- NEW YORK -- The American Jewish Committee, in a New York Times ad today, criticizes major booksellers for selling the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and urges them to not market hate material.
"By peddling the Protocols, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble are saying, in effect, that this is just another book – another valid competitor in the marketplace of ideas. That's what hate groups want you to believe. But ethically and factually - even in their distortion of constitutional principles, they're wrong," says the American Jewish Committee in the ad that appears on the op-ed page of the Times.
JC points out in the ad that the Protocols is "the most bloodstained volume in modern history," having inspired the destruction of European Jewry and become a staple of hate groups around the world.
The main U.S. publishers of the Protocols editions offered by these booksellers are Noontide Press - once linked to the racist and anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby and now the printing arm of the so-called Institute for Historical Review, the main organ of Holocaust denial worldwide - and Book Tree Press, supplier of an array of extremist materials.
"Reputable booksellers exercise discretion in what to place on their shelves, real or virtual," says AJC. "By abandoning that discretion, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other book marketers, such as Borders and Alibris.com, reward hate publishers and validate their contemptible product."
"Every volume sold, on-line and in the book superstores, helps these publishers propagate hate," states the AJC ad. "Hate doesn't need the help, and major corporations shouldn't provide it."
AJC also points out that adding "warning labels" on the booksellers' web site pages featuring the Protocols "does not free them from responsibility for marketing hate."
Today's ad comes four weeks after AJC President Bruce M. Ramer and Executive Director David A. Harris wrote letters to the CEOs of Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders, urging them to stop offering the Protocols for sale.
Company names appearing in this article are:
- Alibris.com (USA)
- Amazon.com, Inc. (USA)
- Barnes & Noble, Inc. (USA)
- Borders Group, Inc. (USA)
AJC Urges Barnes and Noble To Stop Selling Notorious Anti-Semitic Book
March 21, 2000
The American Jewish Committee
- NEW YORK -- The American Jewish Committee today urged Barnes and Noble to stop offering for sale the notorious anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
"While you certainly have the right to distribute this book, you also have the right not to. We ask that you choose not to sell this book," wrote American Jewish Committee President Bruce M. Ramer and Executive Director David A. Harris in a letter to Leonard Riggio, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Barnes and Noble.
Noting that The Protocols "is a main staple of anti-Semitic movements around the world," the AJC leaders asked Barnes and Noble "to consider whether you should be promoting hate literature."
The AJC letter also pointed out that one of the versions of The Protocols offered by Barnes and Noble is printed by Noontide Press, the printing arm of Willis Carto’s empire, which espouses bare-knuckled racism and anti-Semitism, as well as promotes Holocaust denial and the military movement.
The other version is published by The Book Tree, which also markets an array of anti-Semitic and conspiracy-driven materials.
"Your sale of these materials indirectly adds to the coffers of hate groups," the AJC leaders advised Barnes and Noble.
Company names appearing in this article are:
- Barnes & Noble, Inc. (USA)
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