'Hateful': Anti-Semitic flyers found outside hundreds of South Florida homes
(Photo: Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber/Twitter)
SURFSIDE, Fla. - Anti-Semitic flyers were distributed over the weekend to hundreds of homes in two South Florida cities with large Jewish populations, authorities said.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber tweeted that flyers in plastic sandwich bags with small pebbles were distributed to hundreds of homes. In neighboring Surfside, the same type of flyers were distributed to homes, officials said in a "community alert" email to residents.
In a photo Gelber posted, half of the flyer is legible. It lists off some of the health officials in Washington leading the response to COVID-19 and says they are Jewish.
Area residents told WSVN the full flyer implied Jewish people were responsible for the coronavirus pandemic.
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One resident, who asked not to be identified, described the flyer to the news outlet: "The front is labeled, ‘Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish,' and then goes through the CDC director, deputy, medical officer, all the different people that are involved with COVID, and puts the word ‘Jewish’ next to them."
But neighbors said what was written on the back was even worse.
"One of the things they say is to ‘sacrifice people, including Jews, sometimes when necessary,'" a resident told WSVN. "I mean, that is, to me, that’s hate speech."
Home security camera footage showed a car driving through a neighborhood, tossing the flyer in a plastic bag with pebbles inside onto a driveway.
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As a precaution, Gelber and Surfside officials said patrols were being stepped up in neighborhoods and at religious institutions. Local and federal law enforcement agencies were investigating the flyers' origins, officials said.
"There is no place for this in our community & we will do all we can to make that point clear," Gelber tweeted.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.