February 5, 2013

(JTA) — Dozens of anti-Semitic messages were left on the Facebook page of the popular French rapper Booba for vowing in a new song to avenge the victims of the Holocaust.

Booba, the son of a Muslim father from Senegal, raps in a song titled “Master Yoda” that was posted Saturday on his Facebook page, “We’ll avenge like victims of slavery and the Shoah.”

Among the 4,340 comments left on his post were comments denying the Holocaust and calling for a new genocide against the Jewish people, in violation of French law on hate speech. Some comments used pejoratives against Booba, the stage name of 36-year-old Eli Yaffa, for mentioning the Holocaust.

A user identified as John Ken’Nabii wrote, “F**k the Shoah, invented by Zionists to legitimize Israel.” And from another user, Bassim Abir: “F**k your mother, you and the Shoah, we piss on all the Arabs that listen to you.”

JSS News, a French Jewish news site, termed the statements “cyber-lynching.”

Dozens of comments contained the phrase “shoananas,” a combination of the Hebrew name for the Holocaust with the French world for pineapple. Coined by the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne, it is used as a code word for denying the Holocaust seen to be too vague to violate France’s law forbidding it.

On Jan. 24, a French court ordered Twitter to divulge details of French users who made similar comments.

The post containing “Master Yoda” received 1,413 “likes” on Facebook. Booba has sold more than 1 million albums in France.

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