MIAMI – Residents of multiple South Florida communities are reporting finding antisemitic flyers distributed throughout their neighborhoods in a string of incidents very similar to a rash of flyer distributions in South Florida distributed by a white supremacist group back in January.
Residents of Miami and Coral Gables reported receiving antisemitic flyers before dawn Tuesday morning.
A photo shared with Local 10 News from Miami’s The Roads neighborhood shows a flyer referencing Disney, combining antisemitism with false far-right conspiracy theories linking the company to “child grooming” that took off in the wake of Disney announcing its opposition to Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Local 10 News is not sharing specific content from the flyers in an effort to avoid amplifying hate and disinformation.
Chief Ed Hudak, with the Coral Gables Police Department, said Wednesday that officers found at least 207 flyers in the city.
According to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, residents in Parkland also found flyers in their neighborhood Tuesday.
“Around noon on Tuesday, a resident in the 6700 block of Northwest 63rd Way in Parkland alerted BSO that earlier in the morning she located a baggie containing an anti-Semitic pamphlet and corn kernels on her driveway,” a BSO news release said. “Deputies discovered that baggies with similar hate speech directed at people of the Jewish faith were left at several other homes in the neighborhood. The pamphlets referenced gun control and immigration and showed the faces of prominent politicians with the Star of David on their foreheads.”
BSO said its Threat Management Unit is investigating.
Hudak said his department is reviewing doorbell camera videos. He said the incidents could rise to the level of criminal harassment charges under Florida law.
“What we do now is we need to, correct, make people feel safe and then put together the best possible case we have,” Hudak said.
Leaders in South Florida, home to one of the nation’s largest Jewish communities, and across the country have expressed concern about a rise in antisemitism.
“These are organized harassment campaigns that are specifically targeting and vilifying Jews,” Liora Rez, the director of StopAntisemitism.org, said Wednesday in an interview with Local 10 News. “They have targeted campaigns isolating certain areas.”
92 members of Congress recently signed a letter calling on federal law enforcement to address antisemitism nationwide.