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Dozens of antisemitic flyers were found on Sunday morning around Palo Alto, one of many Bay Area cities where hate-based misinformation has recently been spread, Palo Alto police confirmed on Tuesday.
The sheets of paper attempt to blame the COVID-19 pandemic on Jewish officials and identifies a list of numerous federal officials as Jewish. The same misinformation has been spreading nationwide. The flyers were in plastic zip-close bags weighed down with rice, perhaps to prevent them from being blown away by the wind, police Lt. Con Maloney said.
“The flyers directed people to a website with various videos espousing certain viewpoints, many on topics of a political nature,” he said.
They were tossed on the front portion of private properties, with many close to or on the sidewalk. The locations appear to be random, and the same flyers were distributed over a large area in the northern part of Palo Alto, including in the Barron Park and Old Palo Alto neighborhoods.
“There is no indication that recipients of the flyers were targeted in any way. Police do not know who distributed the flyers,” Maloney said. “We have seen news reports of similar, if not identical, flyers being distributed elsewhere in the state and across the country within the past few weeks. This was not unique to Palo Alto.”
In a statement released on Tuesday night, the city of Palo Alto said Sunday’s incident, which occurred in multiple neighborhoods, raises community concerns about hate crimes and hate incidents and follows calls by faith leaders, the City Council and city officials for a community response of belonging and kindness.
“Our community is strengthened by its diversity. We call on all of us to stand together in support of our neighbors and our community values. We are inspired by the grace of Rabbi (Yosef) Levin and Santa Clara County District Attorney (Jeff) Rosen who have called on us to respond to these vile acts with deliberate acts of goodness and kindness to each other. Together, we can overpower individuals who would try to undermine our goodwill,” Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt said.
“These types of acts are a reminder to all of us that hate crimes and hate incidents are serious and are taken seriously by the personnel of the Palo Alto Police Department,” police Chief Robert Jonsen said. “We will continue to review information as it becomes available to determine if criminal charges need to be brought forward to the District Attorney for review. Similar flyers, if not identical, have been distributed in other cities in the Bay Area and elsewhere over the past few weeks.”
The antisemitic flyers were found in Danville on Thursday, Feb. 3, town public information officer Nicola Shihab said in a statement. The town was made aware of the flyers posted on the Iron Horse Trail, which is under the jurisdiction of East Bay Regional Park District. A town maintenance crew was sent to the area, but they did not locate any of the flyers. Shihab said the town believes that members of the public removed all the materials.
“The leaflets obviously fly in the face of our values in Danville,” she said, noting the town’s Commitment to Inclusivity webpage. “Our town’s mission statement focuses on providing services that make people’s lives better. In pursuit of that mission, we are committed to inclusivity, welcoming families and people from all backgrounds to live, work and visit.
“We value dialogue and respectful differences of opinion. Our differences can make us stronger; however, respect is the key. We will not condone or tolerate violence, intimidation, or hate in any form. We are committed to making Danville a safe place for all where we celebrate diversity, dignity, and equality for all members of our community,” she said.
While its authors claimed the flyers “were distributed randomly without malicious intent,” members of the Jewish community said the spread of such misinformation is a concerted effort by a group bent on spreading extremist views to foment hate. Last week, the flyers were also dropped off in Tiburon and El Cerrito, said Rabbi Serena Eisenberg, regional director of the American Jewish Committee Northern California.
“It’s sickening. We know antisemitism is in the rise in other places, and yet, when the material is found in (your) hometown, it hits close to home,” said Eisenberg, who lives in Palo Alto.
The claim that Jewish people are somehow connected to COVID-19 in any way is unfounded and despicable, she said. It harkens back to medieval antisemitism when people spread the false claim that Jews had poisoned the wells and caused the bubonic plague in Europe. Now, antisemitic groups are trying to stir up fear and hatred using the same trope again, she said.
Publicizing the actions of hate groups is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Eisenberg said Jewish organizations don’t want to amplify the false messages of hate groups. But “we do believe it’s important to educate the public about serious threats to the Jewish community,” she said.
Jews make up 60% of all religious-based hate crimes but they represent only 2% of the population, she noted. More than 80% of the Jewish population who took part in a 2021 survey by the American Jewish Committee think antisemitism is a growing problem. Just 40% of the general population does, she noted.
But the hatred and misrepresentations have deadly consequences. The annual survey is taken on the anniversary of the 2018 mass shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at the Tree of Life synagogue. Robert Gregory Bowers killed 11 people and wounded seven others, including Holocaust survivors and police officers, according to news reports.
It was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States and took place during morning services. Bowers, who was arrested for the mass shooting, previously spread falsehoods linking a Jewish aid organization with importing immigrants who he claimed were killing Americans.
‘It’s sickening. We know antisemitism is in the rise in other places, and yet, when the material is found in (your) hometown, it hits close to home.’
Rabbi Serena Eisenberg, regional director of the American Jewish Committee Northern California, Palo Alto resident
Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, who also is Jewish, said on Tuesday that he is disappointed and angry that a small fringe group is trying to sow hatred in the community.
It’s not an accident that Palo Alto is the place in the south bay the antisemitic group chose to leaflet. “It’s the largest Jewish community in the Bay Area,” Rosen said. “It’s an attempt to intimidate Jews.”
Barron Park, one of the Palo Alto neighborhoods where the flyers were found, has many Jewish residents, he said.
Rosen noted the diversity and value most people in the area place on inclusion and respect for the Bay Area’s melting pot of cultures and faiths. Because of that, “I think these attempts will fail,” he said.
Rosen spoke with Chief Jonsen after learning of the incidents. Investigators will try to find the culprits and he is confident they will succeed. But whether the flyers or their distribution are a crime is questionable. Hate crimes involve a crime such as vandalism or battery that are perpetrated out of hatred; the flyers likely fall into the category of hate incidents.
Whether prosecutable or not, Rosen said it’s important to identify the people behind the hate literature and its distribution.
“I would love to have a conversation with some of these people to try to change their hearts and minds. I don’t know if that’s naive, but I would be willing to try,” he said.
Rabbi Yosef Levin of Chabad Palo Alto said the way to fight hatred is through positivity and friendship.
“Darkness is an absence of light, and the way to fight darkness is by lighting a candle,” he said. “Good people have to do the opposite (of hatred). That’s what I believe. What I feel I can do is I can teach people. At the same time, it’s extraordinarily important to combat this with light,” he said.
He recalled a story about antisemitic individuals smashing the window of a home displaying a menorah. In response, the residents of every house in the neighborhood placed a menorah in their picture windows, he said.
“This is a country that has been wonderful to Jewish people,” he said. “This is the true soul of this country. Its true soul is goodness and kindness,” he said.
‘What I feel I can do is I can teach people. At the same time, it’s extraordinarily important to combat this with light.’
Rabbi Yosef Levin, Chabad Palo Alto
Palo Alto’s Human Relations Commission has made race and equity one of its primary issues for the past couple of years. After several months of community engagement and community conversations on race and equity, the City Council adopted a Race and Equity mission statement on Nov. 16, 2020. The council voted on 16 other actions to advance equity work, from use of police data to a community summit on gender equity issues. The council decided to continue this work through its Policy and Services Committee on an ongoing basis.
In March 2021, the council denounced violence directed at people of Asian descent.
The community can learn more about how to report hate crimes at medium.com/paloaltoconnect. More information on the city’s race and equity work can be found at cityofpaloalto.org/raceandequity.
Additional information about hate crimes can be found at the California Department of Justice website, oag.ca.gov/hatecrimes.
The police department encourages reporting any new incidents that may occur in the future, the city and police said in the joint statement. The city of Palo Alto encourages members of our community to promptly report hate crimes and hate incidents by calling its 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413, or 911 if it is an emergency. For confidential reporting, visit cityofpaloalto.org.
Thank you, Almanac for writing about this! It’s critical to speak out early and often. Since persecuting minority groups is an escalating national and global trend, I hope all impacted communities share their experiences with local police, anti-hate groups, the media and the FBI, so that the source is identified and exposed. (So brave throwing this stuff out there in the dead of night.)
If distributing hateful trash (about any group of individuals) has the potential of fomenting discord or emboldening bad actors, perhaps the definition of “Hates crime” should be broadened to include these sorts of hateful materials.
There are people who believe this stuff and, sadly, some will act on it. Some folks need it spelled out for them, legally.
Let’s challenge our lawmakers to fix the law.