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Antisemitic Flyers Target Residents of Chicago Suburbs

Authorities in Cook and Lake counties are investigating after antisemitic literature was left on driveways over the weekend. Flyers in weighted plastic bags were found in Palatine Township, Schaumburg and Long Grove neighborhoods.

The flyers feature photos of American politicians of Jewish descent and Jewish historical figures. A spokesperson for the Cook County Sheriff's Office said "it takes all instances of hate speech seriously."

Long Grove Village President Bill Jacob said "we have zero-tolerance for radical individuals seeking to sow hate."

Antisemitic Meme in Ad for Discount Liquor Causes Outrage in Chile

Jewish community leaders in Chile have expressed outrage at the publication of a newspaper advertisement for cut-price liquor that featured a notorious antisemitic meme.

The advertisement that appeared in the Monday edition of the journal Las Últimas Noticias displayed the “Happy Merchant” — an internet meme depicting a bearded Jewish man with a hooked nose and a sly smile rubbing his hands with glee — alongside discounted bottles of whiskey and rum. The ad was placed by Arbol Verde, an alcohol distribution company located in the city of Valparaiso.

In a statement carried on its Twitter account, the Jewish Community of Chile denounced the advertisement for reviving a “classic stereotype of Nazi propaganda” that had led to “the genocide of six million Jews” during the Holocaust.

A spokesperson for Arbol Verde told local news outlet BioBioChile that it had used the illustration to highlight the discounts for customers paying in cash, and that there had been no intention of causing offense to the Jewish community.

Responding in support of the Jewish community’s tweet, the Israeli Embassy in the capital, Santiago, scoffed at the distribution company’s answer, remarking: “Not having the intention to offend does not explain or reduce the seriousness of the facts.”

Separately, Gabriel Silber — a former member of the Chilean parliament and a Jewish community activist — lamented the general lack of condemnation of the advertisement. “It’s not in the press of Nazi Germany, it’s in the Chile of today,” Silber tweeted, adding that “antisemitic caricatures in other countries would result in cross-communal repudiation.”

The watchdog group StopAntisemitism tweeted the ad was “horrifying”.

A 2018 study by scholars examining memes displayed in various online communities determined that the ‘Happy Merchant’ was among the most popular memes on both 4chan and Gab, two major online outlets for alt right expression.”

Approximately 18,000 Jews live in Chile, which is also home to the largest Palestinian diaspora outside of the Middle East. Antisemitism has been a persistent problem; during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in May 2021, Palestinian activists and their supporters gathered outside the Israel Embassy with signs denouncing a “Palestinian Holocaust” and accusing Israel of practicing apartheid.

Last December, the country elected a far-left president, Gabriel Boric, with a record of stinging attacks against Israel. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, Boric complained that the world’s attention was focused on Moscow’s onslaught, while “Palestine has been occupied for a long time, and we do not know much about what is happening there.”

Antisemitic Flyers Litter Jacksonville Neighborhood

Saturday morning, someone or multiple people dropped antisemitic flyers on the lawns and driveways of another Jacksonville neighborhood.

“It’s hate, and that kind of stuff needs to stop,” Grove Park resident Tim Wallace said.

Up and down streets in Grove Park neighbors woke up to plastic baggies filled with corn kernels and an antisemitic flyer on their properties.

Sunday morning, a neighborhood member of 34 years Tim Wallace went for a walk in the Grove Park neighborhood. He says that is when he noticed several baggies filled with corn kernels and antisemitic messages along each property.

Wallace immediately went home to call the police after the discovery, saying the flyer inside was aggravating.

“I called JSO and had an officer come out and do a report about it. Unfortunately, they said they can’t do anything because it is a form of freedom of speech,” Wallace said.

Even though it is legally allowed — Wallace says it isn’t morally right. “We don’t want or need that kind of racist antisemitic stuff in this city,” Wallace said.

The watchdog group StopAntisemitism posted an alert the day before about possible flyer drops.

In the previous week, Congressman Charlie Crist penned a letter to the Department of Justice to address antisemitism in several major Florida cities. The same messages he cites in his letter are the ones found right here in Jacksonville.

New Hampshire Residents Targeted with Goyim Defense League's Antisemitic Flyers

Ross Terrio wasn’t sure what he was looking at when he saw a Ziploc bag on the edge of his lawn Friday morning. Trash, maybe, but yet, it looked more deliberate.

When he investigated further, he found it to be a folded flier tucked in a sandwich-size bag associating prominent Jewish people to “the COVID Agenda” on one side, and a pro-Trump slogan, “Let’s Go Brandon,” and a dozen high-ranking govenment officials, who are Jewish, on the other side. After checking with some of his neighbors he found he wasn’t the only one.

So he posted photos of the bag and its contents on the Ward 7 Facebook page: “Crazy conspiracy theory Kook alert: Be on the lookout for unhinged antisemite’s dropping off pamphlets blaming Covid on Jewish people.”

Then, he called Manchester police, who told him they were already aware of the fliers –calls with similar reports were coming in from across the city.

In a North End neighborhood, the same delivery system – a Ziploc sandwich bag weighted down with unpopped popcorn kernels – contained a different flier, this one pointing to Jewish members of the U.S. Congress and Senate who over the years had “written, introduced and co-sponsored” federal gun control laws.

There is a reference to a website which is associated with The Goyim Defense League, a white supremacist group efficiently organizing on Telegram and other under-regulated thread boards. StopAntisemitism, a watchdog that monitors and exposes Jew hatred, tweeted of the incident and included a detailed thread of past stunts.

Rabbi Beth Davidson of Temple Adath Yashurun in Manchester had not seen the bags herself, but when she was provided with photos, she was not surprised. “Earlier this week we had word of fliers that were distributed in a Portsmouth neighborhood, the majority were put on the lawns of two Jewish residents, and these were from a known hate group in New Hampshire,” said Davidson. In that instance, the Massachusetts-based Nationalist Social Club - neo-nazi organization exclusive to New England - was credited on the flier for the information.

This week’s reports from Portsmouth, and now Manchester, are the first such complaints recorded in New Hampshire.

Davidson said she had been preparing Friday afternoon for what she was going to say to her congregation during the evening service, and was planning to include the evidence of anti-semitism in Portsmouth. After seeing photos of the fliers distributed in Manchester, not far from her synagogue, she was moved to rewrite her sermon.

“I will say that Manchester is committed to diversity and we have fortunately not had incidents like this before. It’s disappointing that somebody with this kind of hate-driven philosophy would try to infect a neighborhood – and our city.”  

She wondered aloud if it could be the same people who littered Portsmouth with fliers earlier in the week.

So far, police in Manchester say they are actively investigating the many complaints received about the fliers on Friday, collecting as many of them as they could.

Late Friday Mayor Joyce Craig issued this statement about the fliers: “Antisemitism in any form is not welcome here in Manchester. I stand with our Jewish community against this and all hate speech. This matter is being taken very seriously and the Manchester Police Department is conducting a thorough investigation.”

Davidson urges anyone who may have received such a flier to report it to the FBI Field Office in Bedford 603-472-2224.

Antisemitic Conspiracy Theorist Advances to Runoff for Oklahoma State Senate

An Oklahoma Republican primary race will be heading to a runoff election in August between Ally Seifried and antisemitic conspiracy theorist Jarrin Jackson.

Jackson received the most votes in Oklahoma’s primary election Tuesday June 28th, but it not enough to outright win the nomination. The watchdog group StopAntisemitism tweeted about Jackson’s past bigotry and hatred in the following thread:

He frequently streams and posts alt-right Christian content on Telegram, a messaging app. In one post, the former U.S. Army Ranger expressed his distrust of Jewish people by listing the Rothschild family as evidence that “evil exists.”

In addition to staunch, fringe Christian ideals, Jackson is also heavily against LGBTQ rights. On Jackson’s campaign website, he explains that he is running for Oklahoma State Senate because “sexual ‘liberation’ and Darwin’s lie of evolution have misled an entire generation of Americans to believe that God does not exist and that degenerate sexual behavior should be accepted.”