San Francisco, CA – Residents living in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood said they found their doorsteps blanketed with antisemitic flyers which read that “COVID-19 is part of a Jewish agenda.”
The flyers were found in front of homes in a three-square-block area on Union Street, between Scott and Broderick streets Sunday morning.
A Jewish couple found the antisemitic material while walking their dog. They shared pictures with NBC Bay Area Sunday, but declined to talk on camera as they said they feared retaliation.
The flyers said, “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish.” and it names 15 people from the director of the CDC to pharmaceutical investors as being Jewish people involved in the agenda.
The messages were placed in plastic bags with rice in them to make sure they didn’t blow away.
“And for the purposes of spreading their conspiracies and spreading their lies – but also for the purpose of intimidation and terrorizing,” said Anti-Defamation League Regional Director Seth Brysk.
Brysk said the material mirrors statements made by different groups whose radical followers sometimes use the propaganda to try to justify acts of physical terror.
“There is that link to spreading the lies, trying to intimidate and it can inspire violence and terroristic activity,” he added.
San Francisco Supervisor Catherine Stefani released the following statement Sunday:
“Let me be very clear: this kind of antisemitic hatred has no place in our city. I’ve been in touch with the San Francisco Police Department and intend to see these individuals held accountable. Our communities have been terrified by the rise in hate crimes, and we must do everything we can to stand against it wherever it occurs.”
NBC Bay Area’s Thom Jenson reached out to San Francisco police to see if it’s investigating the antisemitic propaganda. But a spokesperson for the department said so far this weekend they don’t have a record of any complaints being filed.
San Francisco wasn’t the only U.S. city that saw antisemitic messages this past weekend.
Several antisemitic flyers were found at homes early Sunday in the Florida communities of Miami Beach and Surfside.
