Penguin asks for an outside review of book accused of being anti-Semitic

Last week, Penguin Random House assured the public that one of its books was not, in fact, anti-Semitic.

But within a few days of that statement, PRH sought and started an independent review of Pedro Baños’s How They Rule the World.

Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger, the author of Antisemitism: What It Is. What It Isn’t. Why It Matters, and a few other independent experts are examining the book.

Neuberger has not finished her review yet, but she has already commented on one of the criticisms of the book — that the tentacle imagery on the cover alludes to anti-Semitism.

The Guardian reports that while she dismissed that claim, she did acknowledge that a large section dropped from the original Spanish version could be problematic.

“It’s not antisemitic in itself, but it hints at stuff about the Jewish conspiracies: powerful, half-hidden, secretive groups mainly of Jewish men bankers,” she said on BBC’s Radio 4.