The Press Complaints Commission is considering whether Times columnist Giles Coren has breached its editors' code of practice after receiving complaints about a piece he wrote about Poles.
In a Saturday column on July 26 entitled, "Two waves of immigration, Poles apart", Coren said he had little sympathy with Polish workers leaving the UK because construction work is drying up.
He said: "We Corens are here, now, because the ancestors of these Poles now going home used to amuse themselves at Easter by locking Jews in the synagogue and setting fire to it."
Coren's own great-grandfather, Harry, was Jewish and left Poland for the UK as a teenager.
The Times columnist added: "The option to return [to Poland] was not there for him, for obvious reasons, and by 1945 the Poland he had left did not exist anymore.
"My sympathy for the plight of the modern Polack is thus limited, and if England is not the land of milk and honey it appeared to them three or four years ago, then frankly, they can clear off out of it."
A few days later, in response, the Times published some letters of complaint, including one from the Polish ambassador Barbara Tuge-Ericinska, who said she was "saddened" by what she called Coren's "aggressive remarks on Poland".
However, the Federation of Poles in Great Britain said publishing the letters did not go far enough and has written to Times editor James Harding to ask for a published apology to Poles for what it claimed is a "discriminatory article".
The FPGB also objected to the use of the word "Polack", which it claimed is "insulting, even inflammatory, in the same way as terms like 'nigger'".
It has copied its letter to Harding to the PCC and threatened to "raise the matter with the Press Complaints Commission", but not yet lodged a formal complaint.
A PCC spokesman said: "We've received a handful of complaints about an article by Giles Coren and will consider whether there has been any breach of the code."
It is expected the PCC will make a decision whether or not to proceed within the next couple of weeks.
Coren is renowned for speaking his mind, particularly in emails, some of which have been leaked.
They include a blistering email to sub-editors at the Times over the removal of the word "a" in one of his restaurant reviews.
In July he sent another withering missive to the London Paper's restaurant critic, Feargus O'Sullivan, and in August 2002 he sent a tirade to sub-editors over their handling of a book review he had written.
Earlier this week the Federation of Poles in Great Britain made a peace deal with the Daily Mail after lodging a formal complaint with the PCC claiming the newspaper had defamed Poles working in Britain.
The FPGB accused the Daily Mail of printing articles that gave rise to "negative emotions and tensions between the new EU immigrants and local communities".
These accusations were rejected by the Mail, but after negotiations conducted via the PCC the paper agreed to remove some articles from its website and alter others.
On Tuesday, the daily paper also ran a letter from the FPGB on what the body perceives as the negative coverage of the Polish community by UK media generally.
Coren and the Times had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication.
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