Antisemitic flyers appear in Lake Township neighborhood
LAKE TWP. ‒ The Uniontown Police Department is investigating a report that antisemitic flyers were distributed in a residential neighborhood over the weekend.
A resident of Waterfall Avenue told police on Sunday that she found a sandwich bag in her driveway containing corn feed and two flyers claiming every aspect of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the hedge fund industry is Jewish. The flyers contained antisemitic messages.
The person who reported the material also saw the same type of bag in the driveway of neighboring residences.
The flyers were reported to have been distributed between 10 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. Monday.
The flyers appear to have been produced by the Goyim Defense League, which the Southern Poverty Law Center tracks as a hate group.
Flyers are latest antisemitic activity in Ohio
The flyers are the latest in a string of antisemitic activity in Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch reported last month that the neo-Nazi Blood Tribe based in rural Maine claims to have established a "Blood Tribe Ohio" chapter in the state. The hate group has staged protests at various LGBTQ+ events in Columbus, Toledo and Wadsworth.
A Brooklyn, Ohio, high school football coach resigned last month after his team used racist and antisemitic language to call out plays during a game against Beachwood, a predominantly Jewish community.
And two years ago, an antisemitic symbol was spraypainted on the YWCA building in Alliance.
The Anti Defamation League Center on Extremism reported that 2022 saw the highest incidence of antisemitic activities ever recorded. More than 6,750 such cases were reported in 2022, up from 4,876 reports in 2021 — a 38% increase.
The group also reported that 39 states saw increased antisemitic activities on the nation's college campuses in 2022, with Ohio listed as one of the top 10 states.
Rabbi David Komerofsky: 'Judaism's universal mission is to repair the world'
Rabbi David Komerofsky of Temple Israel in Canton said antisemitism is a form of bigotry as old as time that is easily manipulated to suit the needs of its promoters.
"Some forms of antisemitism claim that Jews are subhuman and others that there is a Jewish conspiracy controlling the world," he wrote in an email. "These leaflets are just a few examples of the antisemitic tropes that go hand-in-hand with fearmongering and hatred.
"It is indeed unfortunate that some people choose to expend their energies on this kind of vitriol, finding conspiracies where there are none, and preying on centuries-old suspicions about people from backgrounds different from their own," Komerofsky wrote.
He said the world is a complex place and humanity faces many challenges.
"Antisemitic conspiracies seek to simplify problems by objectifying the other, and they divert attention from addressing difficulties by giving the vulnerable someone convenient to blame for the world's ills," Komerofsky wrote.
"Judaism's universal mission is to repair the world, while antisemitism's seemingly eternal mission is to destroy the Jewish people," he added. "Good people from all backgrounds standing up and speaking out against this hatred is our best hope for a better future."
Reach Nancy at 330-580-8382 or nancy.molnar@cantonrep.com.
On X, formerly known as Twitter: @nmolnarTR
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Uniontown police investigating antisemitic flyers in Lake Township
