Romanian state museum director pens antisemitic conspiracy theory

The head of Romania’s state-funded Bucharest Municipality Museum published an op-ed that critics say promotes antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Andrei Majuru, the director of the prestigious museum on history and art, suggested in his April 20 op-ed in the Adevarul newspaper that Romanian society is being ruined by descendants of the Khazars, an extinct Asian kingdom that according to one discredited theory had converted to Judaism.

Complaining of “diminishing of patriotism” and “assimilation with other ethnicities” in Romania, Majuru said these issues were caused by Khazars who “want their Khazarian homeland” set up on Romania’s ruins.

They act “very subtly through disguise and substitution,” he wrote, citing separatist sentiments by Hungarian-speaking Romanians known as Székelys. They are “not ethnic Hungarians, but ‘neo-Jews,’” he wrote.

The article was taken offline over the weekend.

The Centre for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in Romania, or MCA Romania, complained to prosecutors about the op-ed, calling it hate speech.

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