DENVER — During the weekend of January 22, residents in Denver, Arvada and Castle Rock woke up to what many of them described as appalling.
“Who gets up in the morning and decides to do something like this? Who plans their day around doing something so awful?” said a Denver Country Club resident who asked to remain anonymous.
Antisemitic and anti-vaccine flyers were left on various doorsteps and sidewalks, stored in plastic baggies and weighed down with rice. One flyer shows a picture of three women next to two QR codes and the words “Save Your Race.” The other one includes the message “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish.”
Similar leaflets were also distributed in neighborhoods in Texas, Florida, California and Maryland.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) — an organization that tracks antisemitic assaults, vandalism and harassment nationally — believes a loose network of antisemitic individuals organized the flyer distribution. Police are investigating the incident.
According to the ADL, antisemitic incidents have gone up 12 percent in the last year, the highest number recorded in more than 40 years. The organization’s regional director in Denver, Scott Levin, told Rocky Mountains PBS Jewish people are already hyper vigilant after the hostage situation at the Texas synagogue on January 15.
“We’ve had several years of rising antisemitism and the message on these flyers isn’t necessarily new with them blaming Jewish people for things like COVID,” Levin said.
The American Jewish Committee, a global advocacy group, said that one in four Jewish people have experienced antisemitism in the last year. Levin said that’s the reason these flyers can’t be ignored.
“We don’t want to normalize hate. We don’t want to normalize antisemitism,” he said.
