A Lithuanian ruling party senior member suggested this week that Jews are only seeking the burden of others in making money. Bronius Bradauskas, chairman of the Lithuanian Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, told the BNS news agency that, “Jews were just looking to take money,” JTA reports.

Mr. Bradauskas made the statement in connection to a government proposal to grant additional pension payments to about 200 Lithuanian Righteous among the Nations, non-Jews recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for having risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

“I do not see why the Lithuanian state should pay,” Mr. Bradauskas told BNS. “It would be quite logical if we turned to Israel, and that it should pay. But no, the Jews do not want to pay, they are just looking to take from Lithuania.”

Lithuania’s Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius rushed to condemn his Party member’s comment. “I judge this statement to be very negative and it doesn’t represent the party’s position,” said Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius.

A spokesperson for Butkevicius’ Social Democratic Party of Lithuania said the party “does not tolerate any forms of anti-Semitism.”

According to JTA, Lithuania had a Jewish population of 250,000 in 1939 but 95 percent of its Jews were murdered during the Holocaust by Nazi soldiers and Lithuanian collaborators. Today Lithuania has some 5,000 Jews, according to the European Jewish Congress.

(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)