Maccabi Tel Aviv's win over Real Madrid in the Euroleague basketball final game Sunday spurred thousands of anti-Semitic tweets in Spain. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – In the wake of Maccabi Tel Aviv’s win over Real Madrid in the Euroleague basketball finals on Sunday, an estimated 18,000 anti-Semitic Spanish tweets were posted. The Jewish community in Catalonia, Spain, now plans to file a legal complaint on the tweets.

The tweets, many using the hashtag #putosjudios (f******gJews), included statements such as “F****** Jews. This didn’t happen under Hitler,” “F****** Jews… they should stick you all in an oven. F******BASTARDS!” and “F****** Israel and f****** jews. I have always said that and I’ll carry on saying it,” reported Haaretz.

The ensuing lawsuit, which will be filed by the Jewish community of Barcelona and other local Jewish organizations, identifies five people who tweeted many of the anti-Semitic statements, according to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“The majority of the remainder of the messages were anonymous,” said Jai Anguita, president of Bet Shalom, the name for the Jewish community of Barcelona.

“I am a firm defender of freedom of expression, but there must be a limit,” he added. “We could say that these comments come from the high spirits after a [sporting] defeat, that they are almost jokes… But history has shown us where these jokes can lead… Some of them talk about sending Jews to a gas chamber. We cannot allow for this to snowball; we need to stop giving the impression that incitement to hatred is permitted.”