The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraud

Fraud

In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

ulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century. Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...

funded printing of 500,000 copies which were distributed throughout the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

in the 1920s.

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

and the Nazis were major proponents of the text: It was studied, as if factual, in German classrooms after the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent years before. In the opinion of historian Norman Cohn

Norman Cohn

Norman Rufus Colin Cohn FBA was a British academic, historian and writer who spent fourteen years as a professorial fellow and as Astor-Wolfson Professor at the University of Sussex.-Life:...

, the Protocols was Hitler's primary justification for initiating the Holocaust — his "warrant for genocide."

The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late 19th-century meeting of Jewish leaders discussing their goal of global Jewish hegemony

Hegemony

Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...

by subverting the morals of Gentile

Gentile

The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....

s, and by controlling the press and the world's economies. It is still widely available today, still presented, typically, as a genuine document, on the Internet and in print, in numerous languages.

Creation

The Protocols is a fabricated document purporting to be factual. It was originally produced in Russia between 1897 and 1903, possibly by Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky

Pyotr Rachkovsky

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky was chief of Okhrana, the secret service in Imperial Russia. He was based in Paris from March 1885 to November 1902.-Activities in 1880s-1890s:...

, head of the Paris office of the Russian Secret Police, and unknown others.

Source material for the forgery consisted of an 1864 novel by the French political satirist Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly was a French satirist and lawyer known for his work titled The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, later used as a basis for The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.-Life:...

entitled Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu

The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu

The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu is a satirical book written by Maurice Joly, an attorney with political views that were conservative, monarchist, and legitimistic, which was first published in Geneva, Switzerland in 1864...

or Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...

, and a chapter from an 1868 book of fiction entitled Biarritz by the antisemitic German novelist Hermann Goedsche, which had been translated into Russian in 1872.

Literary forgery

The forgery contains numerous elements typical of what is known in literature as a "false document

False document

A false document is a literary technique employed to create verisimilitude in a work of fiction. By inventing and inserting documents that appear to be factual, an author tries to create a sense of authenticity beyond the normal and expected suspension of disbelief for a work of art...

": a document that is deliberately written to fool the reader into believing that what is written is truthful and accurate even though, in actuality, it is not. It is also one of the best-known and most-discussed examples of literary forgery, with analysis and proof of its fraudulent origin going as far back as 1921. The forgery is also an early example of "conspiracy theory" literature. Written mainly in the first person plural, the text embodies generalization

Generalization

A generalization of a concept is an extension of the concept to less-specific criteria. It is a foundational element of logic and human reasoning. Generalizations posit the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements. As such, it...

s, truism

Truism

A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device and is the opposite of falsism....

s and platitude

Platitude

A platitude is a trite, meaningless, biased, or prosaic statement, often presented as if it were significant and original. The word derives from plat, the French word for "flat." Whether any given statement is considered to have meaning is highly subjective, so platitude is often—but not...

s on how to take over the world: take control of the media and the financial institutions, change the traditional social order, etc. It does not contain specifics.

Maurice Joly

Elements of the Protocols were plagiarized from Joly's fictional Dialogue in Hell, a thinly-veiled attack on the political ambitions of Napoleon III, who, represented by the non-Jewish character Machiavelli, plots to rule the world. Joly, a monarchist

Monarchism

Monarchism is the advocacy of the establishment, preservation, or restoration of a monarchy as a form of government in a nation. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government out of principle, independent from the person, the Monarch.In this system, the Monarch may be the...

and legitimist, was imprisoned in France for 15 months as a direct result of his book's publication. Ironically, scholars have noted that Dialogue in Hell was itself a plagiarism, at least in part, of a novel by Eugene Sue

Eugène Sue

Joseph Marie Eugène Sue was a French novelist.He was born in Paris, the son of a distinguished surgeon in Napoleon's army, and is said to have had the Empress Joséphine for godmother. Sue himself acted as surgeon both in the Spanish campaign undertaken by France in 1823 and at the Battle of Navarino...

, Les Mystères du Peuple (1849–1856).

Comparison between The Protocols and Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell

The Protocols 1–19 closely follow the order of Maurice Joly's Dialogues 1–17. For example:

Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu	The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Philip Graves

Philip Perceval Graves was an Irish journalist and writer. While working as a foreign correspondent of The Times in Constantinople, he exposed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an antisemitic plagiarism, fraud, and hoax.-Life:Graves, eldest son of the writer Alfred Perceval Graves , was born...

brought this plagiarism to light in a series of articles in The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

in 1921, the first published evidence that the Protocols was not an authentic document.

Hermann Goedsche

"Goedsche was a postal clerk and a spy for the Prussian

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

secret police. He had been forced
to leave the postal work due to his part in forging evidence in the prosecution against the Democratic leader Benedict Waldeck

Benedict Waldeck

Benedict Waldeck was a left-leaning deputy in the Prussian National Assembly, and later in the Second Chamber. He was tried in Berlin for his political activity in December 1849. Sir John Retcliffe was centrally involved in a forgery scandal to discredit Waldeck, and Retcliffe subsequently lost his...

in 1849." Following his dismissal, Goedsche began a career as a conservative columnist, and wrote literary fiction under the pen name Sir John Retcliffe

Sir John Retcliffe

Sir John Retcliffe was the pseudonym of the German writer Herrmann Ottomar Friedrich Goedsche primarily remembered for his antisemitism and the extent to which his fiction indirectly contributed to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.-Life and work:Goedsche was born in Trachenberg, Silesia, then...

. His 1868 novel Biarritz (To Sedan) contains a chapter called "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel." In it, Goedsche (who was obviously unaware that only two of the original twelve Biblical "tribes" remained) depicts a clandestine nocturnal meeting of members of a mysterious rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

nical cabal

Cabal

A cabal is a group of people united in some close design together, usually to promote their private views and/or interests in a church, state, or other community, often by intrigue...

that is planning a diabolical "Jewish conspiracy." At midnight, the Devil himself appears to contribute his opinions and insight. The chapter closely resembles a scene in Alexandre Dumas, père

Alexandre Dumas, père

Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...

's The Queen's Necklace (1848) (ISBN 1-58963-209-5), in which Joseph Balsamo, Alessandro Cagliostro

Alessandro Cagliostro

Count Alessandro di Cagliostro was the alias of the occultist Giuseppe Balsamo , an Italian adventurer.-Origin:The history of Cagliostro is shrouded in rumour, propaganda and mysticism...

, and company plot the Affair of the Diamond Necklace

Affair of the diamond necklace

The Affair of the Diamond Necklace was a mysterious incident in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI of France involving his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The reputation of the Queen, which was already tarnished by gossip, was ruined by the implication that she had participated in a crime to defraud...

. By 1871, this fictional story was being recounted in France as serious history. In 1872 a Russian translation of "The Jewish Cemetery in Prague" appeared in St. Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

as a separate pamphlet of purported non-fiction. François Bournand, in his Les Juifs et nos Contemporains (1896), reproduced the soliloquy at the end of the chapter, in which the character Levit expresses the wish that Jews be "kings of the world in 100 years", as factual — crediting a "Chief Rabbi John Readcliff." Perpetuation of the myth of the authenticity of Goedsche's story, in particular the "Rabbi's speech", facilitated later propagation of the equally mythical authenticity of the Protocols.

Fictional events in Joly's pamphlet, which appeared four years before Biarritz, may well have been the inspiration for Goedsche's fictional midnight meeting, and details of the outcome of the supposed plot. Goedsche's chapter may, in fact, have been an outright plagiarism of Joly, Dumas père, or both.

Structure and content

The Protocols purports to document the minutes of a late nineteenth century meeting attended by world Jewish leaders, the "Elders of Zion", who are conspiring to take over the world. The forgery places in the mouths of the Jewish leaders a variety of plans, most of which derive from older antisemitic canards. For example, the Protocols includes plans to subvert the morals of the non-Jewish world, plans for Jewish bankers to control the world's economies, plans for Jewish control of the press, and - ultimately - plans for the destruction of civilization. The document consists of twenty-four "protocols", which have been analyzed by Steven Jacobs and Mark Weitzman, and they documented several recurrent themes that appear repeatedly in the 24 protocols, as shown in the following table:

Protocol	Title	Themes
1	The Basic Doctrine: "Right Lies in Might"	Freedom and Liberty; Authority and power; Gold = money
2	Economic War and Disorganization Lead to International Government	International Political economic conspiracy; Press/Media as tools
3	Methods of Conquest	Jewish people, arrogant and corrupt; Chosenness/Election; Public Service
4	The Destruction of Religion by Materialism	Business as Cold and Heartless; Gentiles as slaves
5	Despotism and Modern Progress	Jewish Ethics; Jewish People's Relationship to Larger Society
6	The Acquisition of Land, The Encouragement of Speculation	Ownership of land
7	A Prophecy of Worldwide War	Internal unrest and discord (vs. Court system) leading to war vs Shalom/Peace
8	The transitional Government	Criminal element
9	The All-Embracing Propaganda	Law; education; Masonry/Freemasonry
10	Abolition of the Constitution; Rise of the Autocracy	Politics; Majority rule; Liberalism; Family
11	The Constitution of Autocracy and Universal Rule	Gentiles; Jewish political involvement; Masonry
12	The Kingdom of the Press and Control	Liberty; Press censorship; Publishing
13	Turning Public Thought from Essentials to Non-essentials	Gentiles; Business; Chosenness/Election; Press and censorship; Liberalism
14	The Destruction of Religion as a Prelude to the Rise of the Jewish God	Judaism; God; Gentiles; Liberty; Pornography
15	Utilization of Masonry: Heartless Suppression of Enemies	Gentiles; Masonry; Sages of Israel; Political power and authority; King of Israel
16	The Nullification of Education	Education
17	The Fate of Lawyers and the Clergy	Lawyers; Clergy; Christianity and non-Jewish Authorship
18	The Organization of Disorder	Evil; Speech;
19	Mutual Understanding Between Ruler and People	Gossip; Martyrdom
20	The Financial Program and Construction	Taxes and Taxation; Loans; Bonds; Usury; Moneylending
21	Domestic Loans and Government Credit	Stock Markets and Stock Exchanges
22	The Beneficence of Jewish Rule	Gold = Money; Chosenness/Election
23	The Inculcation of Obedience	Obedience to Authority; Slavery; Chosenness/Election
24	The Jewish Ruler	Kingship; Document as Fiction

Publication history

The Protocols appeared in print in the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

as early as 1903. The anti-Semitic tract was published in Znamya

Znamya (newspaper)

Russkoye Znamya — a newspaper, organ of the Union of the Russian People established in Petersburg by Alexander Dubrovin on , notoriously known for its antisemitic bias.Discontinued on by the order of Petrograd Soviet.-History:...

, a Black Hundreds newspaper owned by Pavel Krushevan

Pavel Krushevan

Pavel Aleksandrovich Krushevan was a journalist, editor, publisher and an official in the Imperial Russia. He was an active Black Hundredist and was known for his far-right, ultra-nationalist and openly antisemitic views and was the first publisher of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.Born...

, as a serialized set of articles. It appeared again in 1905 as a final chapter (Chapter XII) of a second edition of Velikoe v malom i antikhrist (The Great in the Small & Antichrist), a book by Serge Nilus. In 1906 it appeared in pamphlet form edited by G. Butmi

G. Butmi

Georgy Butmi de Katzman — Russian journalist, writer and economist , member of the Union of the Russian People.Butmi opposed introduction of gold standard and supported bimetallism in his writings....

.

These first three (and subsequently more) Russian language imprints were published and circulated in the Russian Empire during 1903–1906 period as a tool for scapegoating Jews, blamed by the monarchists for the defeat in the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

and the 1905 Russian Revolution. Common to all three texts is the idea that Jews aim for world domination

Hegemony

. Since The Protocols are presented as merely a document

Document

The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...

, the front matter and back matter are needed to explain its alleged origin. The diverse imprints, however, are mutually inconsistent. The general claim is that the document was stolen from a secret Jewish organization. Since the alleged original stolen manuscript does not exist, one is forced to restore a purported original edition. This has been done by the Italian scholar, Cesare G. De Michelis

Cesare G. De Michelis

Cesare G. De Michelis is a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.- Biography :...

in 1998, in a work which was translated into English and published in 2004, where he treats his subject as Apocrypha

Apocrypha

The term apocrypha is used with various meanings, including "hidden", "esoteric", "spurious", "of questionable authenticity", ancient Chinese "revealed texts and objects" and "Christian texts that are not canonical"....

. As fiction in the genre of literature the tract was further analyzed by Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

in his novel Foucault's Pendulum

Foucault's Pendulum

Foucault's Pendulum is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988; the translation into English by William Weaver appeared a year later....

in 1988 (English translation in 1989), in 1994 in chapter 6, "Fictional Protocols", of his Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods

Six Walks in the Fictional Woods is a book by Umberto Eco. Originally delivered at Harvard for the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures in 1992 and 1993, the six lectures were published in the fall of 1994....

and in his 2010 novel The Cemetery of Prague.

As the 1917 Russian Revolution unfolded, causing white Russians

White movement

The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...

to flee to the West, this text was carried along and assumed a new purpose. Until then The Protocols remained obscure; it was now an instrument for blaming Jews for the Russian Revolution. It was now a tool, a political weapon used against the Bolshevikis who were depicted as overwhelmingly Jews, allegedly executing the "plan" embodied in The Protocols. The purpose was to discredit the October Revolution

October Revolution

The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

, prevent the West from recognizing the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and bring the downfall of Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

's regime.

Conspiracy references

According to Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes

Daniel Pipes is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal...

,

Pipes notes that the Protocols emphasizes recurring themes of conspiratorial antisemitism: "Jews always scheme", "Jews are everywhere", "Jews are behind every institution", "Jews obey a central authority, the shadowy 'Elders'", and "Jews are close to success."

The Protocols is widely considered influential in the development of other conspiracy theories, and reappears repeatedly in contemporary conspiracy literature, such as Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs

Jim Marrs is an American former newspaper journalist and New York Times best-selling author of books and articles on a wide range of alleged cover ups and conspiracies. Marrs is a prominent figure in the JFK conspiracy press and his book Crossfire was a source for Oliver Stone's film JFK...

' Rule by Secrecy. Some recent editions proclaim that the "Jews" depicted in the Protocols are a cover identity for other conspirators such as the Illuminati

Illuminati

The Illuminati is a name given to several groups, both real and fictitious. Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776...

, Freemasons

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

, the Priory of Sion

Priory of Sion

The Prieuré de Sion, translated from French as Priory of Sion, is a name given to multiple groups, both real and fictitious. The most notorious is a fringe fraternal organisation, founded and dissolved in France in 1956 by Pierre Plantard...

, or even, in the opinion of David Icke

David Icke

David Vaughan Icke is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he has written 18 books explaining his position, and has attracted a substantial...

, "extra-dimensional entities

Deity

A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....

Emergence in Russia

The chapter "In the Jewish Cemetery in Prague" from Goedsche's Biarritz, with its strong antisemitic theme containing the alleged rabbinical plot against the European civilization, was translated into Russian as a separate pamphlet in 1872. In 1921 Princess Catherine Radziwill

Catherine Radziwill

Princess Catherine Radziwiłł was a Polish princess from the Polish-Lithuanian aristocratic Radziwiłł family. She was born as Countess Ekaterina Adamovna Rzewuska. She married Prince Wilhelm Radziwiłł at age 15 and moved to Berlin to live with his family...

gave a private lecture in New York. She claimed that the Protocols were a forgery compiled in 1904-1905 by Russian journalists Matvei Golovinski

Matvei Golovinski

Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work...

and Manasevich-Manuilov at the direction of Pyotr Rachkovsky

Pyotr Rachkovsky

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky was chief of Okhrana, the secret service in Imperial Russia. He was based in Paris from March 1885 to November 1902.-Activities in 1880s-1890s:...

, Chief of the Russian secret service in Paris.

In 1944 German writer Konrad Heiden

Konrad Heiden

Konrad Heiden was an influential journalist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi eras, most noted for the first influential biographies of German dictator Adolf Hitler. Often, he wrote under the pseudonym "Klaus Bredow."Heiden was born in Munich, Germany, on 7 August 1901, and graduated...

identified Golovinski as an author of the Protocols. Radziwill's account was supported by Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who published his findings in November 1999 in the French newsweekly L'Express

L'Express (France)

L'Express is a French weekly news magazine. When founded in 1953 during the First Indochina War, it was modelled on the US magazine TIME.-History:...

. Lepekhine considers the Protocols a part of a scheme to persuade Tsar Nicholas II

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...

that the modernization of Russia was really a Jewish plot to control the world. Stephen Eric Bronner writes that groups opposed to progress, parliamentarianism, urbanization, and capitalism, and an active Jewish role in these modern institutions, were particularly drawn to the antisemitism of the document. Ukrainian

Ukrainians

Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

scholar offers extensive literary, historical and linguistic

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

analysis of the original text of the Protocols and traces the influences of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's prose

Prose

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...

(in particular, The Grand Inquisitor

The Grand Inquisitor

The Grand Inquisitor is a parable told by Ivan to Alyosha in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov . Ivan and Alyosha are brothers; Ivan questions the possibility of a personal, benevolent God and Alyosha is a novice monk....

and The Possessed) on Golovinski's writings, including the Protocols.

In his book The Non-Existent Manuscript, Italian scholar Cesare G. De Michelis

Cesare G. De Michelis

Cesare G. De Michelis is a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.- Biography :...

studies early Russian publications of the Protocols. The Protocols were first mentioned in the Russian press in April 1902, by the Saint Petersburg newspaper, Novoye Vremya ( - The New Times). The article was written by a famous conservative publicist as a part of his regular series "Letters to Neighbors" ("Письма к ближним") and was titled "Plots against Humanity". The author described his meeting with a lady (Yuliana Glinka

Yuliana Glinka

Yuliana Dmitrievna Glinka was a Russian occultist born to a prominent family in Orel, Russia.Her grandfather, Colonel Fyodor Nikolaevich Glinka was investigated as a leader of "a secret society of mystics" during Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Galitzine's investigation of masonic lodges following...

, as it is known now) who, after telling him about her mystical revelations, implored him to get familiar with the documents later known as the Protocols; but after reading some excerpts Menshikov became quite skeptical about their origin and did not publish them.

Krushevan and Nilus editions

The Protocols were published at the earliest, in serialized form, from August 28 to September 7 (O.S.) 1903, in Znamya

Znamya (newspaper)

, a Saint Petersburg daily newspaper, under Pavel Krushevan

Pavel Krushevan

. Krushevan had initiated the Kishinev pogrom

Kishinev pogrom

The Kishinev pogrom was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Chişinău, then the capital of the Bessarabia province of the Russian Empire on April 6-7, 1903.-First pogrom:...

four months earlier.

In 1905, Sergei Nilus published the full text of the Protocols in Chapter XII, the final chapter (pages 305–417), of the second edition (or third, according to some sources) of his book, Velikoe v malom i antikhrist, which translates as "The Great within the Small: The Coming of the Anti-Christ and the Rule of Satan on Earth". He claimed it was the work of the First Zionist Congress

First Zionist Congress

The First Zionist Congress was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization held in Basel , Switzerland, from August 29 to August 31, 1897. It was convened and chaired by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the modern Zionism movement...

, held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland. When it was pointed out that the First Zionist Congress had been open to the public and was attended by many non-Jews, Nilus changed his story, saying the Protocols were the work of the 1902–1903 meetings of the Elders, but contradicting his own prior statement that he had received his copy in 1901:

Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905

A subsequent secret investigation ordered by Pyotr Stolypin

Pyotr Stolypin

Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin served as the leader of the 3rd DUMA—from 1906 to 1911. His tenure was marked by efforts to repress revolutionary groups, as well as for the institution of noteworthy agrarian reforms. Stolypin hoped, through his reforms, to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of...

, the newly appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers, came to the conclusion that the Protocols first appeared in Paris in antisemitic circles around 1897–1898. When Nicholas II learned of the results of this investigation, he requested: "The Protocols should be confiscated, a good cause cannot be defended by dirty means." Despite the order, or because of the "good cause", numerous reprints proliferated.

The Protocols in the West

In the United States The Protocols are to be understood in the context of the First Red Scare

First Red Scare

In American history, the First Red Scare of 1919–1920 was marked by a widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism. Concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and alleged spread in the American labor movement fueled the paranoia that defined the period.The First Red...

(1917–1920). The text circulated in 1919 in American government circles, specifically diplomatic and military, in typescript form, a copy of which is archived by the Hoover Institute. It also appeared in 1919 in the Public Ledger

Public Ledger (Philadelphia)

The Public Ledger was a daily newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania published from March 25, 1836 to January 1942. Its motto was "Virtue Liberty and Independence". For a time, it was Philadelphia's most popular newspaper, but circulation declined in the mid-1930s.-Early history:Founded by William...

as a pair of serialized newspaper articles. But all references to "Jews" were replaced with references to Bolsheviki as an exposé

Investigative journalism

Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, often involving crime, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Investigative journalism...

by the journalist and subsequently highly respected Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

School of Journalism dean Carl W. Ackerman

Carl W. Ackerman

Carl William Ackerman was a journalist and author. He graduated from Earlham College and worked as a correspondent in World War I with the United Press. However, he first received public attention as the author of "Germany, The Next Republic?", a book that discussed the possibility of a successful...

.

In 1923 there appeared an anonymously edited pamphlet by the Britons Publishing Society

Britons Publishing Society

Britons Publishing Society, founded in 1923, was an offshoot of The Britons. According to scholar Gisela C. Lebzelter, The Britons split because:...

, a successor to The Britons

The Britons

The Britons was an anti-Semitic and anti-immigration organization founded in July 1919 by Henry Hamilton Beamish. The organization published pamphlets and propaganda under the imprint names of the Judaic Publishing Co. and subsequently the Britons Publishing Society...

, an entity created and headed by Henry Hamilton Beamish

Henry Hamilton Beamish

Henry Hamilton Beamish was a leading British antisemite and the founder of The Britons.The son of an admiral who had served as an A.D.C...

. This imprint was allegedly a translation by Victor E. Marsden

Victor E. Marsden

Victor Emile Marsden was a journalist and translator, known for allegedly translating an English language version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion...

, who died in October 1920.

Most versions substantially involve "protocols", or minutes

Minutes

Minutes, also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting, starting with a list of attendees, a statement of the issues considered by the participants, and related responses or decisions for the issues.Minutes may be...

of a speech given in secret involving Jews who are organized as Elders

Elder (administrative title)

The term Elder is used in several different countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority...

, or Sages, of Zion

Zion

Zion is a place name often used as a synonym for Jerusalem. The word is first found in Samuel II, 5:7 dating to c.630-540 BCE...

, and underlies 24 protocols that are supposedly followed by the Jewish people. The Protocols has been proven to be a literary forgery and hoax as well as a clear case of plagiarism.

English language imprints

On October 27 and 28, 1919, the Philadelphia Public Ledger

Public Ledger (Philadelphia)

published excerpts of an English language translation as the "Red Bible," deleting all references to the purported Jewish authorship and re-casting the document as a Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

manifesto

Manifesto

A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions, often political in nature. Manifestos relating to religious belief are generally referred to as creeds. Manifestos may also be life stance-related.-Etymology:...

. The author of the articles was the paper's correspondent

Correspondent

A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is a journalist or commentator, or more general speaking, an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, location. A foreign correspondent is stationed in a foreign...

at the time, Carl W. Ackerman

Carl W. Ackerman

, who later became the head of the journalism department at Columbia University

Columbia University

. On May 8, 1920, an article in The Times

The Times

followed German translation and appealed for an inquiry into what it called an "uncanny note of prophecy". In the leader (editorial) entitled "The Jewish Peril, a Disturbing Pamphlet: Call for Inquiry", Wickham Steed

Wickham Steed

Henry Wickham Steed was a British journalist and historian. He was editor of The Times from 1919 until 1922.-Life:...

wrote about The Protocols:

What are these 'Protocols'? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in part fulfilled, in part so far gone in the way of fulfillment?".

Steed later retracted his endorsement of The Protocols after they were exposed as a forgery.

United States

In the United States, Henry Ford

Henry Ford

sponsored the printing of 500,000 copies, and, from 1920 to 1922, published a series of antisemitic articles titled "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem

The International Jew

The International Jew is a four volume set of booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist and automobile manufacturer....

", in The Dearborn Independent

The Dearborn Independent

The Dearborn Independent, a/k/a The Ford International Weekly, was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, but published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. It was notorious for its antisemitic content , and its publication in English of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...

, a newspaper he owned. In 1921, Ford cited evidence of a Jewish threat: "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16 years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time." In 1927, however, the courts ordered Ford to retract his publication and apologize; he complied, claiming his assistants had duped him. He remained an admirer of Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, however.

In 1934, an anonymous editor expanded the compilation with "Text and Commentary" (pages 136–141). The production of this uncredited compilation was a 300-page book, an inauthentic expanded edition of the twelfth chapter of Nilus's 1905 book on the coming of the anti-Christ. It consists of substantial liftings of excerpts of articles from Ford's antisemitic periodical The Dearborn Independent. This 1934 text circulates most widely in the English-speaking world, as well as on the internet. The "Text and Commentary" concludes with a comment on Haim Weizman's October 6, 1920 remark at a banquet: "A beneficent protection which God has instituted in the life of the Jew is that He has dispersed him all over the world". Marsden, who was dead by then, is credited with the following assertion:

It proves that the Learned Elders exist. It proves that Dr. Weizmann knows all about them. It proves that the desire for a "National Home" in Palestine is only camouflage and an infinitesimal part of the Jew's real object. It proves that the Jews of the world have no intention of settling in Palestine or any separate country, and that their annual prayer that they may all meet "Next Year in Jerusalem" is merely a piece of their characteristic make-believe. It also demonstrates that the Jews are now a world menace, and that the Aryan races will have to domicile them permanently out of Europe.

The Times exposes a forgery, 1921

In 1920-1921, the history of the concepts found in the Protocols was traced back to the works of Goedsche and Jacques Crétineau-Joly

Jacques Crétineau-Joly

Jacques Crétineau-Joly was a French Catholic journalist and historian.- Biography :He was born at Fontenay-le-Comte, Vendée. At first he studied theology at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, but, feeling that he had no vocation, he left after a stay of three years, during which he received the...

by Lucien Wolf

Lucien Wolf

Lucien Wolf was an English Jewish journalist, historian, and advocate of Jewish rights.-Biography:He was the son of Edward Wolf, a London pipe manufacturer, and his wife Céline...

(an English Jewish journalist), and published in London in August 1921. But a dramatic exposé occurred in the series of articles in The Times

The Times

by its Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

reporter, Philip Graves

Philip Graves

, who discovered the plagiarism from the work of Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly

.
According to writer Peter Grose, Allen Dulles, who was in Constantinople developing relationships in post-Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

political structures, discovered 'the source' of the documentation ultimately provided to The Times. Grose writes that The Times extended a loan to the source, a Russian émigré who refused to be identified, with the understanding the loan would not be repaid. Colin Holmes, a lecturer in economic history of Sheffield University, identified the émigré as Michael Raslovleff, a self-identified antisemite, who gave the information to Graves so as not to "give a weapon of any kind to the Jews, whose friend I have never been."

In the first article of Graves' series, titled "A Literary Forgery", the editors of The Times wrote, "our Constantinople Correspondent presents for the first time conclusive proof that the document is in the main a clumsy plagiarism. He has forwarded us a copy of the French book from which the plagiarism is made." The New York Times reprinted the articles on September 4, 1921. In the same year, an entire book documenting the hoax was published in the United States by Herman Bernstein

Herman Bernstein

Herman Bernstein was an American journalist, writer, translator, and diplomat.Herman Bernstein was born on September 21, 1876, in Vladislavov at that time on the Russo-German border to David and Marie Bernstein...

. Despite this widespread and extensive debunking, the Protocols continued to be regarded as important factual evidence by antisemites.

Middle East

A translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in Cairo

Cairo

Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim

Muslim

A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...

was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951.

The Berne Trial, 1934–1935

The selling of the Protocols (edited by German antisemite Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch, originally Emil Theodor Fritsche , was a German publisher and pundit. His anti-semitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

) by the National Front

National Front (Switzerland)

The National Front was a far right political party in Switzerland that flourished during the 1930s.The party began life amongst a number of debating clubs at the University of Zurich, where anti-Semitism, Swiss nationalism and support for ideas similar to those later adopted in the racial policy of...

during a political manifestation in the Casino of Berne on June 13, 1933 led to the Berne Trial in the Amtsgericht (district court) of Berne

Berne

The city of Bern or Berne is the Bundesstadt of Switzerland, and, with a population of , the fourth most populous city in Switzerland. The Bern agglomeration, which includes 43 municipalities, has a population of 349,000. The metropolitan area had a population of 660,000 in 2000...

, the capital of Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, on October 29, 1934. The plaintiffs (the Swiss Jewish Association and the Jewish Community of Berne) were represented by Hans Matti and Georges Brunschvig

Georges Brunschvig

Georges Brunschvig was a Swiss lawyer and president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities . Internationally, he is best known for representing the plaintiff in the 1934–35 "Berne Trial".-Berne Trial:...

, helped by Emil Raas. Working on behalf of the defense was German anti-Semitic propagandist Ulrich Fleischhauer

Ulrich Fleischhauer

thumb|Ulrich Fleischhauer Ulrich Fleischhauer was a leading antisemitic publisher of books and news articles reporting on an alleged Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory and supposed "nefarious plots" by clandestine Jewish interests to dominate the world.His career was at first grounded in the Imperial...

. On May 19, 1935, two defendants (Theodore Fischer and Silvio Schnell) were convicted of violating a Bernese statute prohibiting the distribution of "immoral, obscene or brutalizing" texts while three other defendants were acquitted. The court declared the Protocols to be forgeries, plagiarisms, and obscene literature. Judge Walter Meyer, a Christian who had not heard of the Protocols earlier, said in conclusion:

I hope, the time will come when nobody will be able to understand how in 1935 nearly a dozen sane and responsible men were able for two weeks to mock the intellect of the Bern court discussing the authenticity of the so-called Protocols, the very Protocols that, harmful as they have been and will be, are nothing but laughable nonsense.

Vladimir Burtsev

Vladimir L'vovich Burtsev , was a revolutionary activist, scholar, publisher and editor of several Russian language periodicals. He became famous by exposing a great number of agents provocateurs, notably Yevno Azef in 1908...

, a Russian émigré, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Fascist

Anti-fascism

Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...

who exposed numerous Okhrana agents provocateurs

Agent provocateur

Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...

in the early 1900s, served as a witness at the Berne Trial. In 1938 in Paris he published a book, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Proved Forgery, based on his testimony.

On November 1, 1937 the defendants appealed the verdict to the Obergericht (Cantonal Supreme Court) of Berne. A panel of three judges acquitted them, holding that the Protocols, while false, did not violate the statute at issue because they were "political publications" and not "immoral (obscene) publications (Schundliteratur)" in the strict sense of the law. The presiding judge's opinion stated, though, that the forgery of the Protocols was not questionable and expressed regret that the law did not provide adequate protection for Jews from this sort of literature. The court refused to impose the fees of defence of the acquitted defendants to the plaintiffs, and the acquitted Theodor Fischer had to pay 100 Fr. to the total state costs of the trial (Fr. 28'000) that were eventually paid by the Canton of Berne. This decision gave grounds for later allegations that the appeal court "confirmed authenticity of the Protocols" which is contrary to the facts. A view favorable to the pro-Nazi defendants is reported in an appendix to Leslie Fry

Leslie Fry

L. Fry was the pen name of Paquita Louise de Shishmareff, an antisemitic activist who is primarily known for her authorship of Waters Flowing Eastward, which asserts that Jews were to blame for both Capitalism and Bolshevism and had started World War I. She alleged that Freemasons were involved...

's Waters Flowing Eastward. A more scholarly work on the trial is in a 139 page monograph by Urs Lüthi.

The Basel Trial

A similar trial in Switzerland took place at Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

. The Swiss Frontists

National Front (Switzerland)

Alfred Zander and Eduard Rüegsegger distributed the Protocols (edited by the German Gottfried zur Beek) in Switzerland. Jules Dreyfus-Brodsky and Marcus Cohen sued them for insult to Jewish honor. At the same time, chief rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis

Mordecai Ehrenpreis

Mordecai Ehrenpreis was a Hebrew author, publisher, Rabbi and Zionist.He was born in Lviv and started already as a young man to write in Yiddish, studied later at German universities and at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. Since 1884 he worked for the Ha-Maggid and...

of Stockholm (who also witnessed at the Berne Trial) sued Alfred Zander who contended that Ehrenpreis himself had said that the Protocols were authentic (referring to the foreword of the edition of the Protocols by the German antisemite Theodor Fritsch). On June 5, 1936 these proceedings ended with a settlement.

Germany

The Protocols also became a part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify persecution of the Jews. It was made required reading for German students. In The Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933–1945, Nora Levin

Nora Levin

Nora Levin was a historian of the Holocaust and a writer.She worked as Professor of history of Gratz College in Philadelphia, the director of the Holocaust Oral History Archive and served on the Advisory Editorial Board at "Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe ".- Works :* The...

states that "Hitler

Adolf Hitler

used the Protocols as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews":

Despite conclusive proof that the Protocols were a gross forgery, they had sensational popularity and large sales in the 1920s and 1930s. They were translated into every language of Europe and sold widely in Arab lands, the United States, and England. But it was in Germany after World War I that they had their greatest success. There they were used to explain all of the disasters that had befallen the country: the defeat in the war, the hunger, the destructive inflation.

Hitler refers to the Protocols in Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...

... To what extent the whole existence of this people is based on a continuous lie is shown incomparably by the Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion, so infinitely hated by the Jews. They are based on a forgery, the Frankfurter Zeitung
Frankfurter Zeitung
The Frankfurter Zeitung was a German language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt...

moans and screams once every week: the best proof that they are authentic. [...] the important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims.

Hitler endorsed it in his speeches from August 1921 on, and it was studied in German classrooms after the Nazis came to power. At the height of World War II, the Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels

Joseph Goebbels

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...

proclaimed: "The Zionist Protocols are as up-to-date today as they were the day they were first published." In Norman Cohn's words, it served as the Nazis' "warrant for genocide".

German language publications

The first and "by far the most important" German translation was by Gottfried Zur Beek (pseudonym of Ludwig Müller von Hausen). It appeared in January 1920 as a part of a larger antisemitic tract dated 1919. After The Times

The Times

discussed the book respectfully in May 1920 it became a bestseller. "The Hohenzollern family

House of Hohenzollern

The House of Hohenzollern is a noble family and royal dynasty of electors, kings and emperors of Prussia, Germany and Romania. It originated in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century. They took their name from their ancestral home, the Burg Hohenzollern castle near...

helped defray the publication costs, and Kaiser Wilhelm II had portions of the book read out aloud to dinner guests".

Alfred Rosenberg

Alfred Rosenberg

' was an early and intellectually influential member of the Nazi Party. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart; he later held several important posts in the Nazi government...

's 1923 edition "gave a forgery a huge boost".

Modern era

Contemporary imprints of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a forged antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903...

and New World Order

The Protocols continue to be widely available around the world, particularly on the internet, as well as in print in Japan, the Middle East, Asia, and South America.

Since World War II governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have not referred to the Protocols. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

and Muslim

Muslim

regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic, including endorsements from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser

Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...

and Anwar Sadat

Anwar Sadat

Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat was the third President of Egypt, serving from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981...

of Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, one of the President Arifs of Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, King Faisal

Faisal of Saudi Arabia

Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud was King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975. As king, he is credited with rescuing the country's finances and implementing a policy of modernization and reform, while his main foreign policy themes were pan-Islamic Nationalism, anti-Communism, and pro-Palestinian...

of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar Gaddafi or "September 1942" 20 October 2011), commonly known as Muammar Gaddafi or Colonel Gaddafi, was the official ruler of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977 and then the "Brother Leader" of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1977 to 2011.He seized power in a...

of Libya

Libya

Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

.
The 1988 charter

Hamas Covenant

The Hamas Charter , issued in 1988, outlined the position of the Palestinian Islamic organization Hamas on many key issues at the time. The Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face...

of Hamas

Hamas

Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...

, a Palestinian Islamist group, states that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion embodies the plan of the Zionists. Recent endorsements in the 21st century have been made by the Grand Mufti

Grand Mufti

The title of Grand Mufti refers to the highest official of religious law in a Sunni or Ibadi Muslim country. The Grand Mufti issues legal opinions and edicts, fatwā, on interpretations of Islamic law for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases...

of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri

Ekrima Sa'id Sabri

Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine from October 1994 to July 1, 2006. He was appointed by Yasser Arafat.He has a doctorate from Al Azhar University in Egypt on the “Islamic Endowment Between Theory and Practice”....

, and the education ministry of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

.

In 2010, Italian philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco

released his novel The Cemetery of Prague which contains a fictional account of the origin of The Protocols forgery.

External links

Public Statement by The American Jewish Committee, 4p. A disclaimer
Disclaimer
A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship...

published as a result of a conference held in New York City on November 30, 1920.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion; a fabricated "historic" document; - A report prepared by the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. From 88th Congress, 2d Session (document exhibited at the United States Holocaust Museum). August 6, 1964
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: The Truth Story, by Eli Eshed
Eli Eshed
Eli Eshed is an Israeli researcher of popular culture who has spent considerable time and effort analyzing the Israeli pulp magazines and paperbacks of the 1950s and 1960s....

; December 13, 2005
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Virtual Library
Jewish Virtual Library is an online encyclopedia published by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise . Established in 1993, it is a comprehensive website covering Israel, the Jewish people, and Jewish culture.-History:...

.
What's the story with the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"?, The Straight Dope, June 30, 2000
"A Hoax of Hate" The Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...

, 2002
The poisonous Protocols Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, August 17, 2002
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_blib4.htmAntisemitic Propaganda: "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion", Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance are a small group in Kingston, Ontario dedicated to the promotion of religious tolerance through their website, ReligiousTolerance.org.-History of the group and its website:Bruce A...

], September 2004
Review by Eli Eshed of The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

) by Will Eisner
Will Eisner
William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...

, 2005
Holocaust Encyclopedia - "A Dangerous Lie", United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...

, April, 2006
Exhibition Review of The Antisemitic Hoax That Refuses to Die by Edward Rothstein
Edward Rothstein
Edward Rothstein is a critic and a composer.Rothstein holds a B.A. from Yale University , an M.A. in English literature from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago...

, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, April 21, 2006
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, Skeptic's Dictionary
Skeptic's Dictionary
The Skeptic's Dictionary is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 with nearly 400 entries. As of January 2011 the website has...

by Robert Todd Carroll
Robert Todd Carroll
Robert Todd Carroll , Ph.D., is an American writer and academic. Carroll has written several books and skeptical essays but achieved notability by publishing the Skeptic's Dictionary online in 1994.-Early life and education:...

, 2006
Elders of Zion to Retire, by Anthony Weiss, a Purim
Purim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...

spoof article in the Jewish Daily Forward, March 4, 2009
Audio: Talk by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...

, August 13, 2006
History of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion - official Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

website
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion - Encyclopaedia Britannica
Index of several resources at the Institute for Global Communications
Institute for Global Communications
The Institute for Global Communications or IGC Internet is an institution that provides Internet presence for groups deemed "progressive" for example, the Andrea Dworkin archive.IGC Internet is a project of the Tides Center....
Text of Marsden's English translation

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Creation

Literary forgery

Maurice Joly

Comparison between The Protocols and Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell

Hermann Goedsche

Structure and content

Publication history

Conspiracy references

Emergence in Russia

Krushevan and Nilus editions

Stolypin's fraud investigation, 1905

The Protocols in the West

English language imprints

United States

The Times exposes a forgery, 1921

Middle East

The Berne Trial, 1934–1935

The Basel Trial

Germany

German language publications

Modern era

See also

Further reading

External links