The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas is looking for video or still photos of people who left antisemitic flyers on driveways early this morning. A northern California-based hate group known for spreading antisemitic materials across different states left flyers on driveways in Hopkins, and neighborhoods in Edina, St. Louis Park, and Southwest Minneapolis.
The flyers were left on behalf of the group Goyim TV, and played on the antisemitic trope of Jewish media control.
Rob Allen, the JCRC’s director of community security, asked that if anyone has doorbell video, or other video or stills of the people distributing antisemitic fliers, please email them to the JCRC.
“We are interested in the individual responsible for distributing them,” Allen said. “Incidences of this kind have occurred across the country. As of yet, we haven’t seen violence or property damage with the groups associated.”
J. The Jewish News of Northern California has reported extensively on the group, which is based in Petaluma, Calif. The news outlet reported that its new brand of flyering requires little work from the group’s leaders.
“The flyers are shared on Telegram, an encrypted messaging app, and are easily printed at home,” J. reported. “It then just takes one person to stuff them into plastic bags and distribute them, usually in the dead of night.”
The flyers in the Minneapolis area, along with flyers dropped in the area of Talmud Torah of St. Paul in late June, are in plastic bags weighed down with corn or rice so they don’t blow away.
The group has also thrived on coverage in the media. By committing antisemitic acts, the group requires coverage to inform the Jewish community of their threat and activities. On the other hand, “it’s clear that media coverage has breathed life into Goyim TV’s propaganda campaign, giving it reach far beyond what it would ever have achieved without it,” J. noted in a story. “It has created a seemingly endless feedback loop.”
Though the group’s activities are well-documented as deliberately racist and antisemitic, the Minneapolis-area flyers, like the St. Paul one, include a sentence that says, “these flyers were distributed randomly and without malicious intent.”
Editorial fellow Lev Gringauz contributed to this article.
What did the flyers actually say?