(JTA) — NBA star Tony Parker is the latest public figure to have been discovered performing the quenelle – a quasi-Nazi salute created by an anti-Semitic French comedian.

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center reportedly has called on Parker, who plays point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, to apologize for performing the salute, which is meant to resemble the Heil Hitler salute.

Parker, who was born in Belgium and is French by nationality, performed the salute earlier this year standing next to its creator, comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, backstage at a theater in France. Photos of the salute were published in the French media.

Reports of the Parker salute come a day after soccer player Nicolas Anelka, a French national playing for Britain’s West Bromwich Albion soccer team, was roundly condemned for performing the salute during a match on Saturday.

Anelka defended himself on Sunday, saying that he saw a photo of President Obama performing the quenelle with rapper Jay Z and singer Beyonce. They were, in fact, performing a hip hop move in which the hand brushes off the shoulder.

Britain’s Football Association has launched an investigation of the Anelka incident.

“As a leading sports figure on both sides of the Atlantic, Parker has a special moral obligation to disassociate himself from a gesture that the government of France has identified as anti-Semitic,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, told the Algemeiner news website.

France’s interior minister, Manuel Valls, declared that his ministry would look into banning all public performances by Dieudonne, the inventor of the quenelle.

Dieudonne has been convicted several times for inciting racial hatred against Jews in films, shows and articles.

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