ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A West Orange County neighborhood is outraged after dozens of flyers with antisemitic language ended up on people’s doorsteps Saturday.
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Many people found flyers with disturbing content related to the Jewish community.
Neighbors said the people who were responsible for putting the flyers up did so in broad daylight, wearing masks on their faces.
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Some neighbors said they watched the people hand the flyers out.
In the security footage provided to Channel 9 by neighbors, we saw people rented a U-Haul truck to pass out the flyers. At this point, we are unaware if anyone is facing charges.
Neighbors told Channel 9 they did report the situation to law enforcement and shared that security footage with them.
One side of the paper singles out members of the Jewish community for their roles in mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The other side pictures members of the Biden administration with Jewish symbols next to their names and paired with derogatory statements.
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Channel 9 spoke to two neighbors who were not home when it happened, but after finding the flyers, they went back and checked their security footage to find similar images.
Lou Pendas said after reading the flyer, he had to speak out.
“There’s enough hate in the world, and this country is highly divided and it’s very disturbing,” Pendas said.
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Pendas’s neighbor Jared Meyers said after his son found the flyer and brought it to him, he was not sure what to do at first.
Meyers then did some research and because no direct threat was made, he did not think it was appropriate to call the police, and reported the incident to the anti-defamation league.
“It was pretty easy to fill out the form and when I did, they displayed a heat map across the country and it showed different types of hate crimes and anything that was antisemitic,” he said. “And that’s when I saw this wasn’t the only time this has happened.”
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Channel 9 also received a statement from the Holocaust Resource and Education Center, which said it is deeply concerned by the content appearing in the community.
A center representative said something like this happened last week, where antisemitic content has been passed out and put on display around Central Florida.
Officials are asking people who receive the flyers to report them to law enforcement.
“I think that this will definitely make people afraid,” Myers said. “I’m not afraid by them doing this, just concerned that this is being done.”
Channel 9 has reached out to the sheriff’s office to see if the office is investigating this incident and is waiting to hear back.
You can read the Holocaust Resource and Education Center’s full statement below:
“The staff and board of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida are deeply concerned about the distribution of antisemitic flyers in our community. This is not the first time we have seen this here. These flyers use antisemitic stereotypes for political purposes. Such actions are intended to make one group feel unsafe and unwelcome, and this kind of hate speech attacks our community’s deeply held values of respect, diversity, and acceptance. People who receive these flyers should report them to the authorities, take to social media to express their disapproval, and help call out such untrue conspiracy myths if they hear them in their midst.
We know where such words can lead. Conspiracy myths and stereotypes like this were used in the Holocaust to turn communities against the Jews and others, and to justify violence against them. We want to thank our elected leaders, local organizations, media outlets, and others who speak out against this hate and respond swiftly with condemnation. The Holocaust Center will always respond to such actions by promoting education about the history and lessons of the Holocaust to build a just and caring community free of antisemitism and all forms of prejudice and bigotry, and we know that we cannot do it alone. Thank you, Talli Dippold. CEO.”
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