Wiesenthal Center Urges Samsung and Chiel Industries to Denounce Anti-Semitic Stereotypes Used in Debate Over Possible Merger

July 9, 2015

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on the leadership of Samsung C & T and Chiel Industries in South Korea to denounce anti-Semitic caricatures and conspiracies that have been employed by segments of the South Korean media to criticize a proposed merger between these two subsidiaries of the Samsung corporate empire.

Paul Singer (pictured), the American CEO of the Elliott Associates hedge fund that owns a 7% stake in Samsung C & T, is a vocal critic of the merger, and as a result faced a barrage of anti-Semitic vitriol, much of it coming from mainstream outlets, including MoneyToday, who recently wrote:

“Elliott is led by a Jew, Paul E. Singer, and ISS [an advisory firm that analyzed the merger] is an affiliate of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), whose key shareholders are Jewish. According to a source in the finance industry, Jews have a robust network demonstrating influence in a number of domains.”Journalist Kim Ji-ho wrote in Mediapen, “Jews are known to wield enormous power on Wall Street and in global financial circles…. It is a well-known fact that the US government is swayed by Jewish capital…Jewish money has long been known to be ruthless and merciless.” 

The column was accompanied by a photo of Singer, identified as a “greedy, ruthless head of a notorious hedge fund.”

“To be clear, as a human rights organization, we have no involvement or opinion about the proposed merger. That is to be decided by the companies and stockholders of Samsung C&T and Chiel Industries. However, there should be no place for anti-Semitism in any discussion involving this matter,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights NGO. “We know all too well that the use of such historic anti-Semitic canards fans the flames of hatred throughout history, often leading to the denigration, violence and even genocide against the Jewish people,” Rabbi Cooper added. “We urge the leadership of all sides debating the proposed merger  to publicly denounce those who have chosen to poison the debate by deploying of history’s oldest hate to influence the Korean public on this issue,” Cooper concluded.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).