AUSTRALIAN Jewish leaders have condemned “deeply offensive” comparisons between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler.

In recent months, a string of media outlets, celebrities and politicians, including talk-show host Glenn Beck and Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto, have lined up to call Trump the next Hitler.

The billionaire real estate mogul’s unapologetic threats to deport illegal immigrants and put a halt on Muslims entering the US have caused outrage.

Trump this week scored primary victories in three more states, including Florida, forcing rival candidate Marco Rubio to drop out and further increasing his chances of taking the nomination.

It came as Dilbert creator Scott Adams warned that constant comparisons of Trump to Hitler in the media were helping incite violence against the candidate and his supporters and “priming the public to try to kill Trump”.

Earlier this month, comedian Louis CK penned a 1400-word letter to fans describing Trump as an “insane bigot” and urging them to “please stop” voting for him.

“It was funny for a little while [but] the guy is Hitler,” he wrote.

“And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the ‘30s. Do you think they saw the s*** coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.”

In December, British band Django Django tweeted, “Donald Trump trying to pull a 1933 Hitler but replacing Jews with Muslims. Dangerous times.”

Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos added, “I wonder what @realDonaldTrump (hairpiece be upon him) will reveal next in his final solution.”

Now NBA star Matt Barnes is the latest high-profile celebrity to make the comparison.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, the Memphis Grizzlies player posted a picture of Hitler removing a Trump mask with the caption, “This who you want to run your country?”

Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), said “once again we see celebrities using appalling comparisons to Hitler to attack others”.

“There is simply no place for this kind of sickening distortion in our public discourse,” he said.

While people were entitled to “strong opinions” on Donald Trump, “Hitler and his genocidal actions should never form part of the discussion about the American presidential elections and no candidate should ever be compared to Hitler”, Dr Abramovich said.

Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg also criticised the comparisons.

“Donald Trump has his detractors, and many for good reason, but to compare him with the evil Adolf Hitler responsible as he was for the deaths of millions of innocents is ridiculous in the extreme,” he told news.com.au.

“It diminishes the Holocaust and a shameful chapter in the history of the world.”

Dr Abramovich said the six million Jews and millions of others who perished at the hands of the Third Reich “deserve better and should not be used for political point sloganeering”.

“It bears repeating again that these types of historically inaccurate comparisons diminish the profound tragedy of the Holocaust and are deeply offensive to the victims, to survivors and to their families,” he said.

“Such ignorant posts only fuel the gross trivialisation of the Holocaust.”

Jeremy Jones, Director of International and Community Affairs at the Australia-Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), said “generally we find it very unhelpful when people make these sorts of historical comparisons”.

“One, it doesn’t help people understand the contemporary phenomenon, and two, the historical circumstances [of the Holocaust] had particular and unique features which tend to be brushed under the surface [when such comparisons are made],” he said.

Peter Wertheim, Executive Director of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), declined to comment on the politics of another country but pointed to the ECAJ’s policy platform, which references “inappropriate Holocaust rhetoric”.

The EJAC “recognises that the Holocaust, the Nazi program of genocide, was a unique historical event”, “notes that the Holocaust is generally recognised as the benchmark of the most extreme case of human evil” and “deplores the inappropriate use of analogies to the Nazi Genocide in Australian public debate”.

Industry Minister Christopher Pyne yesterday described Trump’s popularity as “terrifying and kind of weird”, describing the “Donald Trump phenomenon” as a “real problem for the United States”.

“It’s terrifying, and I think for the Republican party, if they choose Donald Trump, will find themselves in the wilderness for a very long time,” he said, saying the “violence and farcical scenes” at Trump’s rallies made for “uncomfortable viewing”.

Conversely, conservative Liberal senator Cory Bernardi said the rise of Trump shone a light on “global disenchantment with mainstream politics”.

“I have been warning about this for some time. Unless the major parties respond to the concerns of mainstream people, the public will look elsewhere and a more formidable force will emerge,” Mr Bernardi said.

frank.chung@news.com.au

— with AAP