LOS ANGELES — First it was Hanukkah, now Passover. On Saturday morning, some residents in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles woke up to find yet another antisemitic flier on their front door.
The fliers, which appear connected to similar fliers that were distributed across the region in November and December, begin with the statement, "Every Single Aspect of The Ukraine-Russia War is Jewish," followed by a list of government officials.
Previous leaflets espoused similar propaganda-style hate speech, such as: "Every Single Aspect of the COVID Agenda Is Jewish."
Residents in a neighborhood on the northern end of Beverly Hills started seeing the fliers about 7 a.m. Saturday, the morning after the first Passover Seder. The Los Angeles Police Department received similar reports, authorities said, and the Beverly Hills Police Department is canvassing the area and collecting all the fliers.
"It's still pretty fresh, we're still figuring out where they all are," said Beverly Hills Police Sgt. Ryan Dolan, who noted that there was no direct threat written in the fliers. "There is no credible threat to people right now."
Beverly Hills Mayor Lili Bosse shared a photo of the flier on Twitter and condemned the continuation of this hate speech: "This was sent to me from a resident who woke up to this antisemitism at their front door along with other streets in our city and Los Angeles. During Passover and Easter weekend. Hate will NEVER Win."
Previously, police collected more than 200 fliers in Beverly Hills and found that each leaflet was enclosed in a plastic sandwich bag containing rice — likely to weigh them down so that they could be thrown out of a passing car.
The fliers, which were also distributed in Pasadena and other parts of the country such as Texas and North Carolina, came on top of a spate of antisemitic incidents in Southern California.
In May, several people attacked diners outside a Westside sushi restaurant, shouting anti-Israel slogans and flying a Palestinian flag before escalating to punching and kicking. Two reports of antisemitic graffiti at West Hollywood businesses were made the week of New Year's Day 2020.
In California, antisemitic incidents have risen by 40% over the last five years, Jeffrey Abrams, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles, said after the May attack. Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State, San Bernardino, has said that in 2019, Jewish people were the "top target" of hate crimes in L.A., Chicago and New York.
The Beverly Hills Police Department is investigating and attempting to identify the people behind Saturday's fliers.
