Anti-Semitic flyers were found in driveways in Highland Park and Glencoe Thursday, which was also a day set aside to remember the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust during World War II.
The flyers — with phrases like “Judaism is Communism” and “Antifa is Jewish Militia” — were found in driveways along Sheridan Road in Highland Park and Glencoe Thursday morning drawing quick reactions from local officials and faith leaders.
“I was disgusted, but not surprised,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering, who is Jewish, said Thursday. “I don’t know if it was intentional today because it has been going on throughout the Chicagoland region.”
Yom Hashoah, the Hebrew term for Holocaust Remembrance Day, started at sunset Wednesday and ended at sunset Thursday. Evan Moffic, one of the rabbis at congregation Makom Solel Lakeside in Highland Park, said the timing was troubling.
“Yom Hashoah is a day we remember the horrible carnage and murder of the Holocaust, and to experience it on this day of memory is particularly jarring and hurtful,” Moffic said. “America is not 1930s Germany, and we are grateful for the response from the political leaders in our community.”
“One has to assume this was intentional,” David Goldenberg, the Midwest regional director of the Anti Defamation League, said. “At the same time, this is taking place on a daily basis around the country.”
About five miles south of Highland Park, the Glencoe village president expressed outrage over the flyers found there. In a statement condemning the acts, Howard Roin mentioned a recent Anti-Defamation League report that indicated a “severe spike” in anti-Semitic acts nationwide. He also pointed to a resolution the Glencoe Village Board passed just days before the flyers were found in the village.
“To make it clear that antisemitism in any form has no place in Glencoe, only a week ago the Village Board strongly condemned all anti-Semitic acts and formally adopted a resolution acknowledging and recognizing the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Sadly, this action was far too timely, Roin said in the statement.
Roin said he was “disgusted” to learn of the flyers that had been distributed.
“Let me say in the strongest terms possible that the Village Board and I, as well as our entire community, find these pathetic acts of antisemitism repugnant and reprehensible. Glencoe proudly is an inclusive community, but these ideas and the hate that they represent have no place here.”
Also, in nearby Winnetka, police officials said there were reports of anti-Semitic flyers distributed in that town too.
“We are in communication with other agencies that have reported similar materials. These cases are under investigation,” Winnetka police Commander Dylan Majcher said in a statement.
Highland Park City Manager Ghida Neukirch said she was uncertain how many homes were targeted, but the distribution took place along Sheridan Road, as well as side streets in that area. She learned from officials in Glencoe that anti-Semitic flyers were distributed there too.
“People in that area reported they found them in their driveways this morning,” Neukirch said. “We have increased police patrols around our places of worship, and are coordinating with area police departments and the FBI.”
This is not the first incident of anti-Semitic vandalism in Highland Park over the past year. In November, anti-Jewish graffiti was scrawled on a wall of the Central Avenue Synagogue.
Rotering said though the Jewish people represent 2% of the American population, the FBI reports 58% of the religiously based hate crimes in the United States target Jews. She urges action.
“As Elie Wiesel famously noted in his 1986 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, ‘Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,'” Rotering said in a letter to the community. “We will not be silent. This is hate.”
Goldenberg said the number of anti-Semitic incidents has increased 15% over the past year, according to ADL research. Since 2016, these occurrences have accelerated 430%.
“We have to respond by speaking out, and standing strong against anti-Semitism and hate,” Goldenberg said.
Steve Sadin is a freelancer.
Freelancer Dan Dorfman contributed.