The Jewish community in Russia's Tatarstan region has expressed outrage about the name and packaging design of a new ice cream called Poor Jew.

The Slavitsa company in Tatarstan's second-largest city, Naberezhnye Chelny, announced the new ice-cream product on February 28.

The ice cream's wrapper features an image of Israel's flag.

Leonid Shteinberg, a leader of the Jewish community in Naberezhnye Chelny, has demanded that production and sale of the ice cream be halted on grounds that it is "racist."

The city prosecutor's office says it has launched a preliminary investigation into the complaints.

The Slavitsa company was at the center of a scandal in 2016 after it started producing a chocolate ice cream called "Obamka," apparently aimed at demeaning then-U.S. President Barrack Obama by using the "-ka" suffix.

That ice cream's wrapper depicted an African boy.

The company stopped making the product after foreign media accused the firm of racism and anti-Americanism.

The same company also made headlines in June after its branch in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk started producing an ice cream called "Khokhol" -- a word commonly used in Russia as an ethnic slur for Ukrainians.

That ice cream's wrapper featured the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine's national flag.

With reporting by Interfax and NTV