Copies of the “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion“ seen on the Barnes & Nobles website before they were removed. Photo: Screenshot.

The Barnes & Nobles bookseller removed from its website earlier this week copies of an infamous antisemitic text that falsely claims Jewish leaders have plans for world domination, The Algemeiner has learned.

“In 2022, the operative word is accountability,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Algemeiner on Thursday. “Jews are being beaten on streets of London and New York. NO business should peddle the debunked bible of those seeking to murder all Jews. Moving forward, all Jews should demand that every online platform stop selling a book correctly called a warrant for genocide.”

Multiple versions of “The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion” — also known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — were available on the Barnes & Nobles website this week. First published by the Russian Tsarist secret police in 1903, the book falsely claims to contain confidential minutes from a fabricated Jewish private meeting in the last years of the 19th century. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the publication’s 24 sections “represent the most notorious political forgery of modern times” and “although thoroughly discredited, the document is still being used to stir up antisemitic hatred.”

The copies of the book sold by Barnes & Nobles were said to be translated by Victor Marsden, a Russian correspondent for the London daily newspaper The Morning Post, which published a copy of the “Protocols” as well as articles promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories.

In his English translation of the “Protocols,” Marsden, who had lived in pre-Communist Russia, wrote in the introduction: “the Jews are carrying it out with steadfast purpose, creating wars and revolutions … to destroy the white Gentile race, that the Jews may seize the power during the resulting chaos and rule with their claimed superior intelligence over the remaining races of the world, as kings over slaves.”

A copy of “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” on the Barnes & Nobles website before it was removed. Photo: Screenshot.

A representative for Barnes & Nobles told JTA that the book was automatically uploaded to its website from “standard industry databases” and that it was never stocked in their bookstores.

“We regret that it was listed inadvertently. As soon as we are made aware of any such offending titles, we take prompt action to remove the offending titles in accordance with our policy, as we did with this title,” said the representative.

The leading British bookstore Blackwell’s, which has 20 chains nationwide, also removed “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” from its website this week following outrage from Jewish leaders.