ASHINGTON - Vice President Al Gore's selection of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut as his vice presidential running mate has prompted a flood of anti-Semitic messages on the Internet from people objecting to the fact that Lieberman is an Orthodox Jew.
The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate speech on the Internet, said anti-Semitic slurs and offensive language were sprouting on message boards, discussion groups, and e-mail lists.
''The naming of a Jewish senator as vice presidential candidate is an event that will rally anti-Semites in this country,'' Abraham Foxman, director of the ADL, said yesterday.
There were no incidents of anti-Semitism related to Lieberman's candidacy reported to the New England Anti-Defamation League, interim director Diane Kolb said.
Lieberman's heritage was widely discussed by mainstream media yesterday, with some analysts saying it would make little or no difference to the vast majority of voters. But others were not so sure.
The New York Times reported yesterday that a chat room about the Lieberman selection drew 14,000 postings - half, at times, attacking Lieberman's religion.
That is is to be expected, said Rabbi Kenneth Cohen, director of the eastern division of the United Synagogue, the umbrella organization for conservative Judaism.
''If we had the Internet in 1960 you would have heard the same types of thing about John F. Kennedy,'' said Cohen, referring to the election of the first Catholic US president. ''It certainly isn't representative of the overwhelming majority.''
