Officials Downplay Anti-Semitic Incident in Poland

Israeli and Polish officials were trying to downplay an anti-Semitic incident during a debate in the Polish city of Kielce over proposed reparations payments to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

During the debate over the weekend, Dawid Lewicki, a candidate for the far-right Confederation political alliance, stuck a kippah in front of a candidate from the ruling Law and Justice party and said, “This is the symbol of Law and Justice. They kneel before the Jews, they sell the country for $300 billion,” according to Polish press reports.

The Law and Justice candidate, Anne Krupka, threw the kippah off the table. Later when she rose to speak, another Confederation official, picked up the kippah and held it above her head.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said on Monday that “this a fringe racist party that isn’t even worthy of responding to.”

Poland’s ambassador to Israel, Marek Magierowski, condemned the incident. “Yes, I condemn it. Unequivocally. All expressions of racially motivated hatred are unacceptable,” he tweeted.