Polish politician Konrad Berkowicz puts a skullcap on the head of rival lawmaker Anna Krupka during a debate in Kielce on May 18, 2019. Image by Twitter

By Aiden Pink May 20, 2019

A political debate in Poland devolved into anti-Semitic antics after far-right candidates tried to put a kippah on the head of a rival politician, saying that her party “kneels before the Jews,” the Times of Israel reported Sunday.

One candidate from the far-right Confederation group put a kippah in front of the woman representing the ruling Law and Justice Party, and another hovered it over her head while she was speaking. “This is the symbol of Law and Justice. They kneel before the Jews, they sell the country for $300 billion,” one of the Confederation members reportedly said.

Kielce, wczoraj.

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Konrad Berkowicz z Konfederacji, a pani z Prawa i Sprawiedliwości.

Przyszli koalicjanci. ??

Mówiłem, że koalicja to wrzutka PiSu, żeby suweren uwierzyl w koalicje i glosowal na PiS. pic.twitter.com/X3FFAQch4O

— Ken (@KenLewak) May 19, 2019

The issue of Polish restitution to Holocaust victims has been a major debate in Poland this year ahead of European Union and parliamentary elections. President Trump signed a law last year encouraging compensation from Poland, but the right-wing Law and Justice party is opposed to it, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki comparing it to “Hitler’s posthumous victory” and saying last week if anyone should get compensation, it should be Poles. But that stance was apparently not convincing enough for the Confederation, which is to the political right of Law and Justice.

The issue has caused tensions in Israeli-Polish relationship and exacerbated anti-Semitism in Poland. Polish nationalists twice in April used anti-Semitic signs and effigies in protests, and an Israeli descendant of Polish Holocaust survivors was arrested last week after spitting on the Polish ambassador in Tel Aviv.

The debate over restitution took place in Kielce, where a pogrom in 1946 – one year after the end of World War II – led to the deaths of at least 38 Jews.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter at @aidenpink.

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