Jeremy Corbyn Image by Getty Images

(JTA) — British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote a forward to a book that says that banks and the press were controlled by Jews.

Corbyn wrote the forward praising the new edition of JA Hobson’s 1902 book “Imperialism: A Study,” for a new edition issued in 2011. He wrote the forward four years before he became head of the Labour Party, whose leaders have been accused of tolerating anti-Semitism in the party’s ranks and even encouraging it with anti-Israel as well as what some have deemed anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Corbyn, a far-left and anti-Israel politician, has faced allegations that he himself is promoting anti-Semitism in Labour, though he denies this.

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In the book, Hobson describes the global and financial system as controlled by people “united by the strongest bonds of organization, always in closest and quickest touch with one as other, situated in the very heart of the business capital of every state, controlled, so far as Europe is concerned, by men of a single and peculiar race, who have behind them many centuries of financial experience, they are in a unique position to control the policy of nations.”

The book also says: “Does anyone seriously suppose that a great war could be undertaken by any European State, or a great State loan subscribed, if the house of Rothschild and its connections set their face against it?”

The Rothschild family is historically Jewish and for centuries has been one of Europe’s wealthiest families.

A Labour Party spokesman told the newspaper that Corbyn’s praise was of the overall political analysis and that he “completely rejects the anti-Semitic elements.”

The Board of Deputies of British Jews sent a letter to Corbyn on Wednesday expressing “grave concern” about the forward. The letter called the book “pure and unequivocal racism and there can be no apology for that.”

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