Popular anti-Semitic sentiment frighteningly reminiscent of the lead-up to Nazi rule in Germany is growing in the United States in response to the current economic crisis.

With a deflated Wall Street begging for a lifeline from Washington, small businesses across the country unable to secure needed loans and average Americans being turned away by mortgage banks, many people are looking for a scapegoat.

And it seems the old European canards regarding malicious Jewish control of global finances are far from dead in America.

The Anti-Defamation League this week released the result of a survey showing a huge upsurge in the amount of anti-Semitic postings on the Internet.

From popular blogs to Internet forums to alternative news websites, Jews are being widely blamed for the economic downturn in the US.

One representative posting asserted that the Jews as a group control the US government and all its major financial institutions, and seek to impose a "Jew world order" on the rest of mankind.

The owners and operators of some of the websites said they had tried to remove the offensive postings, but that the numbers were simply too great for them to handle.