In a disturbing new trend, antisemitic leaflets are being left in neighborhoods across the country in recent weeks, according to published reports.
"In what appears to be a coordinated effort in cities across the country, antisemitic and other racist materials were distributed in clear sandwich bags to parts of our city overnight," Colleyville, Texas, Mayor Richard Newton said Sunday in a statement, NBC 5 reported.
The leaflets come just over a month since members of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville were taken hostage by a gunman.
"Unfortunately, antisemitism is a reality in the United States and around the world," the synagogue wrote in statement after hearing of the leaflets. "Each of us has a responsibility to root out hate, and work toward building a community where all belong, and all can thrive."
The leaflets make inaccurate claims about Jewish people and COVID-19, with some also identifying members of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as Jewish. They have appeared in cities in California's Bay Area, Florida, Texas, and Colorado, Fox News reported.
"Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish," read one leaflet that was left in a driveway in Colleyville, according to FOX-4 Dallas.
One Colleyville resident told Fox they were not going to read the materials.
"I'm just going to pick them up and throw them away," the person said.
WSVN-TV reported that Miami Beach and Surfside, Florida, residents said hate speech was written on the back of leaflets left in their communities in late January.
"One of the things they say is to 'sacrifice people, including Jews, sometimes when necessary,'" a resident said of the leaflets. "I mean, that is, to me, that's hate speech."
Out on the West Coast, Bay Area neighborhoods were targeted with similar antisemitic leaflets for the second time, according to FOX-2 Oakland.
"This is driven by a hatred of Jews," Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. "And it's an opportunity to use COVID to blame Jews."
People in Parker, Colorado, awoke on a recent Sunday morning to leaflets in clear plastic bags with rice, according to Denver 7.
Ken Buffington thinks he caught the moment a driver threw a flier into his yard on his home security camera. His daughter found it in the morning while taking their dog outside, he told Denver 7.
"I was born Catholic and my wife is Jewish, and my kids were raised Jewish," Buffington said, telling the station his wife and daughter were rattled by the flyers.
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