Moscow’s REN-TV aired an antisemitic documentary last Friday at prime time hours.

The documentary was a reworking of a 2012 documentary that blamed the sinking of the Titanic on a conspiracy which one commentator said was a “reanimation” of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and one viewer described as having a “clearly expressed anti-Semitic subtext”.

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

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.