Polish MP who doused menorah in antisemitic attack elected to European Parliament

Grzegorz Braun, a far-right Polish politician who extinguished a Chanukah menorah in Warsaw last year, was elected to the European Parliament this week, according to results published on Monday.

Braun was a candidate for a Polish coalition of far-right parties called Confederation, Liberty and Independence, which came in as the third-largest party in the Eastern European country with 12.08% of the vote.

In December, Braun used a fire extinguisher to put out Chanukah candles in Warsaw’s parliament, injuring a woman attending the holiday ceremony who lost consciousness and was hospitalized.

Braun, known for his history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories and who has previously been accused of assault against a Holocaust historian, approached the holiday lamp in the parliamentary halls and sprayed it with a fire extinguisher, disrupting the ceremony.

“Those who take part in acts of satanic worship should be ashamed,” Braun said before taking to the podium in the parliamentary chamber and claiming that Chanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, is “satanic.”

As part of his campaign for Sunday’s vote, Braun autographed fire extinguishers for his supporters.

Last week, he released a campaign ad replete with antisemitic rhetoric, drawing censure from Israeli Ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne.

Braun wrote in the past about “the war which the Jews have waged against the Polish nation.

“They have waged this war for centuries. In fact, they have always conducted it against the Poles and against the whole Christian world,” he claimed in 2019.

Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7 in southern Israel, the Confederation Party has intensified its anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, accusing the Jewish state of genocide and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli envoy.