Photo Credit: FB
German newspaper cartoonist claims his hook-nosed caricature of Zuckerberg is not anti-Semitic.

A caricature of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung has drawn charges of anti-Semitism against the artist and newspaper.

As a comment on Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp, announced last week, artist Burkhard Mohr depicted the 29-year-old Jewish entrepreneur as an octopus grasping at computers around him. One of his tentacles holds the logo of Whatsapp. reaching, which he purchased last week.

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With its exaggerated features, including a long nose and thick lips, the cartoon octopus resembles in more ways than one the cartoons published by the rabidly anti-Semitic Julius Streicher in his Nazi-era Der Stuermer magazine. The caption read, “’Krake Facebook’ – Facebook Octopus and Zuckerberg Octopus.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has protested the depiction, but Mohr denied harboring any anti-Semitic sentiments.

However, Mohr has replaced the caricature of Zuckerberg’s face with a gaping maw, and the newspaper tweeted on Monday, “We apologize for the cartoon.”

Zuckerberg was raised Jewish but now describes himself as an atheist.

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