Keep your hateful flyers out of my neighborhood

Appearance of antisemitic flyers a sign that racist group is expanding into region

Someone — an ignorant coward, no doubt — polluted my Longview neighborhood one night last week.

Plastic sandwich bags weighted with rice and containing antisemitic flyers were scattered on driveways and properties around the Old West Side area.

I won’t go into detail because I don’t want to spread the hateful messages. Suffice it to say the propaganda blamed  Jews for abortion, “the COVID agenda,” pornography and controlling media. The flyers include multiple mug shots of prominent politicians, business leaders and thinkers of Jewish ancestry.

The flyers were produced by GoyimTV,  a video platform for the Goyim Defense League.

“Goyim” is offensive Yiddish slang for gentile, or a non-Jewish person. The Goyim Defense League is a loose but nationwide network of individuals connected by virulent antisemitism and is led by five or six primary organizers,  according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which fights anti-semitism.

The ADL says the group spreads antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories, including assertions that  Jews “control” major institutions, that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie; and that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York.

This is the first time I can recall that antisemitic literature has been distributed in Longview, certainly in my quiet neighborhood.  The only similar incident was a 2007 a neo-Nazi attempt to hold a white supremacist rally in Longview. It fizzled due to public opposition. 

The Goyim Defense League has been mostly active in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, New York, South Carolina and Texas, according to the ADL. However, it has increased its activity in the Pacific Northwest, said Miri Cypers, regional director at the ADL office in Seattle.

“Over the past one or two years we have seen this group become more active in the area,” Cypers said, noting a propaganda distribution two months ago in the Bellevue area.  “They are prolific propagandists who are really known for their virulent anti-semitism.”

It is not known who distributed the flyers in Longview Thursday night.

The random nature of the distribution seems to indicate that no particular person was targeted. The one Jewish family I know in the neighborhood did not get the flyers. 

Cowlitz County has relatively few Jewish people, making the distribution of anti-semitic literature here a bit strange.

A message on the bottom of the flyers reads like it was written by an (inarticulate) attorney trying to shelter the authors from prosecution:   “These fliers (sic) were distributed randomly without malicious intent.” 

Yeah. Sure.

In any case, it’s uncertain whether any crime is involved. Even hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, though at times the line where it becomes criminal is often fuzzy and open to debate.

Longview Police Captain John Reeves said there are no leads in the case. The agency will keep a record of any police report filed in the matter, he said.

The incident occurred during a recent increase in attacks on Jews elsewhere. On Jan. 29, a masked vandal unsuccessfully  tried to start a fire at a synagogue in Bloomfield, New Jersey. In San Francisco, police arrested a 51-year-old man who is accused of firing a gun — apparently with blanks — inside a synagogue during services early last week. No injuries were reported in either incident.

 In 2018,  a man who shouted antisemitic slurs opened fire inside a Pittsburgh synagogue,  killing 11 congregants and wounding six others, including several Holocaust survivors.

According to a just-published survey of 4,000 people taken last fall by the Center for Antisemitism Research, there has seen a sharp rise in antisemitic attitudes among Americans over the last three years.

The extreme far right sometimes cozies up to antisemitic figures and neo-Nazi messages. White supremacist and far right literature contains ample antisemitic statements, as documented by the Souther Poverty Law Center. In  Southwest Washington, congressional candidate Joe Kent gave an interview to Greyson Arnold, a well-known Nazi sympathizer, later explaining that he was unaware of Arnold’s background.

Research findings published in June found evidence that antisemitic attitudes are far more prevalent on the political right in the United States. The study, published in Political Research Quarterly, indicates that prejudicial attitudes towards Jews are particularly strong among younger conservatives, according to an account in PsyPost, a publication for psychologists. 

A neighbor who brought the flyers to my attention lamented that hate speech like this gives traditional conservatives like him a bad name. I don’t blame him for feeling tainted.

The distribution of hateful propaganda “is something that needs to be taken seriously. It is easy to minimize, but we are seeing that hate is being normalized and more widespread,” Cypers said.

“The seriousness of the antisemitic attitudes expressed here is really disturbing. If you are a member of the Jewish community, this sends a clear message that you are not wanted and you are disliked by society.”

There’s a balance and tension here between calling out an antisemitic group and giving voice to their propaganda.  But it’s important to report and document incidents like this so police and the community can track any escalation.

As for me, I have one thing to tell the person or persons who distributed this hate.

Keep your poison to yourself — and out of my neighborhood.