Setting Sail? The Titanic is towed out to sea before its maiden voyage that ended in tragedy. Image by getty images

— A privately-owned Russian television channel reran a documentary from 2012 which claimed the Titanic was sunk partly due to a conspiracy by Jews.

REN-TV aired the anti-Semitic documentary last month, according to the Coordination Forum for Countering anti-Semitism.

The documentary suggested a “group of 300” Jews, freemasons and “illluminati” had sunk the ship in 1912 to provoke an international crisis and install themselves as leaders of a world government, a central theme of anti-Semitism conspiracy theories.

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The 2012 version of the documentary used the past tense, suggesting that the attempt was in the past and ultimately unsuccessful. However, REN-TV’s airing of the documentary was edited to use the present tense, as well as to link the conspiracy to various more recent events, including the Chernobyl disaster, 9/11, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia has already expressed concern about what the rise of such ideas in Russia could mean for the Jewish community. Separately, Federation on Monday urged Russia’s new education minister Olga Vasilyeva to clarify her attitude to the era of terror under Joseph Stalin, following statements attributed to her suggesting that she had praised the efficiency of state organizations under the Soviet dictator, Interfax reported.

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