Controversy started in book store and spread to Net.

The Internet controversy over "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" actually started in an old-fashioned bookstore, says Myrna Scheinbaum, spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League.

In February, a Jewish customer at a Barnes & Noble store found a copy of "The Protocols" shelved in the "Judaica" section. Barnes & Noble does not ordinarily stock the book in its stores, but whenever a customer fails to pick up a special order, the store displays it in hopes of someone else buying it.

But categorizing the book as Judaica implies the book was written by Jews. Almost any Jewish customer would have found such a suggestion offensive; this patron complained to his rabbi.

Barnes & Noble quickly responded to protests by reshelving "The Protocols" in "World History." By that time, however, the rabbi had mentioned the incident on RavNet, an Internet discussion group for Conservative rabbis. It occurred to some of them to check out barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com, where they found the book being sold with no warnings; instead, it bore a blurb from the publisher hinting at the book's legitimacy, not ...