Anti-Semitic Christmas Carol Causes Uproar
Advocacy groups are incensed after a Romanian government-owned channel
broadcast a Christmas song glorifying the Holocaust and calling for
Jews to be burned. The channel is blaming a local group for the
performance.
Outrage has erupted among advocacy groups in Romania after the state
channel TVR broadcast an anti-Semitic Christmas song calling for Jews to
be burned in a chimney. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
(JTA), the song ran on a Dec. 5 broadcast by the rural-targeted TVR3
channel.
In the broadcast, a choir was shown singing a Christmas song that
indirectly glorifies the Holocaust. The song, which rhymes and uses the
word "jidovi," a pejorative word for a Jew, includes the lyrics, "only
in the chimney as smoke, this is what the 'jidov' is good for."
On Wednesday, Romania's Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean harshly
condemned the event and called on the public prosecutor's office and
parliament to bring those responsible to justice. Israel's embassy said
it was "concerned" about the broadcast.
Channel Shifts Responsibility
The channel said in a statement on Thursday that it was not responsible
for selecting the Christmas songs, but merely broadcasting carols
selected by a cultural center dedicated to preserving the traditional
culture of the northwestern Cluj region. The YouTube video of the
performance shows the host thanking both the singers and the director of
the cultural center and asking him about local Cluj folklore values.
MCA Romania, a non-governmental organization dedicated to fighting
anti-Semitism, said it was unacceptable for the channel to evade
responsibility by blaming the local organization. According to the JTA,
MCA sent a complaint to Romanian President Traian Basescu and Prime
Minister Victor Ponta that said: "It is outrageous that members of the
public weren't scandalized by an anti-Semitic song calling for people to
burn Jews."
TVR's leadership is already in the process of being replaced as a result
of an unrelated matter, after the parliament concluded on Tuesday that
the station had been mismanaged. TVR head Claudiu Saftoiu and the rest
of the management were relieved of their positions and replacements have
yet to be found.
COPY http://abcnews.go.com/
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