In an attack caught on video, a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) used a fire extinguisher to put out the Hanukkah candles on a menorah positioned in a public area of the building, filling the room with mist and covering bystanders with foam. Grzegorz Braun, an MP for the far-right alliance Konfederacja, then stated that “those who take part in acts of Satanic worship should be ashamed”. He was subsequently excluded from the sitting of parliament. Konfederacja condemned his actions on X (formerly Twitter).
Konfederacja was established in 2018 as an alliance of five far-right Polish parties, including Braun’s Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (Confederation of the Polish Crown). The alliance won 7.2% of the vote in this year’s election.
Braun himself has been an MP since 2019, and has been outspoken with his antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-EU views and conspiracy theories. He infamously refers to “the war which the Jews have waged against the Polish nation”, for example.
