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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6898183.stm Friday, 13 July 2007, 21:16 GMT 22:16 UK Stir over priest's 'anti-Semitic remarks' The BBC's Adam Easton reports on the growing row over alleged anti-Semitic remarks made by the controversial head of a religious radio station in Poland. Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, 62, allegedly called the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, a "swindler" who had bowed to pressure from the Jewish lobby to compensate people for property lost during and after World War II. The comments came to light last week after the weekly magazine, Wprost, published excerpts and subsequently a tape, from a private lecture it said the priest gave to students at his media centre in Torun, northern Poland. In it, Fr Rydzyk, reportedly criticises Mr Kaczynski for his subservience to the Jewish lobby. "You know that it's about giving $65bn," to the Jews, he allegedly said. "They will come to you and say 'give me your coat. Take off your pants. Give me your shoes'," the magazine reported. The Simon Wiesenthal Center - an international Jewish human rights organisation - strongly rebuked the comments. "This is outrageous, a [Nazi propaganda minister] Josef Goebbels in a collar," said Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Center. Israel's ambassador to Poland, David Peleg, said Fr Rydzyk's comments were damaging Polish-Israeli relations. "The tapes that have come to light are evidence that Rydzyk and his institutions are anti-Semitic and something must be done in the name of good Polish-Israeli relations," he said in an interview with Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.
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