Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Protocols of the Elders of Zion a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity through subversion and sabotage and to control the world. The Protocols first appeared in their entirety in Russia in 1905. They were widely disseminated in the 1920s and became a classic defense for anti-Semitism. First published in the United States in 1920, the Protocols were championed by Henry Ford in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, and cited throughout the 1930s by some anti-Roosevelt and fascist groups. As early as 1921, the English journalist Philip Graves exposed the similarity between the Protocols and a political satire by Maurice Joly, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu (1864). Subsequent investigation showed the original document to be a forgery written by members of the Russian secret police.

Bibliography: See H. Bernstein, The Truth about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1935, repr. 1972); N. Cohn, Warrant for Genocide (1967, repr. 1970).

Protocols of the Elders of Zion. An anti-Semitic forgery of the 19th cent., written to demonstrate a Jewish conspiracy to achieve financial and political power world-wide. Despite their evident falsity, they were used by the Nazis, and have resurfaced as anti-Jewish propaganda during the conflict over Palestine/Israel.

Elders of Zion, Protocols of the Learned. An anti-Semitic forgery. The book purports to be the report of a conference of world Jewry in which the leaders plot world domination.