Antisemitic Flyers, ‘Hate Propaganda’ Condemned By Venice Police Chief

VENICE, FL — Police are investigating antisemitic flyers distributed to Venice residents in recent weeks. The flyers were left in driveways overnight and found the morning of June 25, police Chief Charlie Thorpe shared Friday in a Facebook post.

Mayor Ron Feinsod also received an antisemitic encrypted email on July 2, he said.

The email used Jewish slurs, told the mayor to take his own life and called for Jewish people to leave Florida, according to the Venice Gondolier.

“These instances are hateful but not criminal,” Thorpe said, adding that the Venice Police Department is investigating the messages. “We don’t want this hate anywhere in our city and we stand with our community members and our faith leaders in condemning these efforts to spread hate propaganda. These messages are meant to elicit responses of anger and fear.”

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There’s been a wave of antisemitic flyers and messages distributed throughout Florida in recent months.

In June, hundreds of antisemitic flyers were delivered to South Tampa homes. Flyers were also distributed in Sarasota-area neighborhoods in February and March. And in January, hate-filled flyers were distributed across South Florida in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Antisemitic incidents increased 50 percent in Florida — to 190, an all-time high — in 2021, according to a news release from the Anti-Defamation League.

The agency said, “Antisemitic incidents of harassment in Florida included the distribution of flyers, a bomb threat, Zoom bombings of religious services, antisemitic slurs received on social media or via text, verbal assaults outside a synagogue, and online harassment of a student player by his teammates.”

Meanwhile, “vandalism incidents included swastikas and graffiti drawn in many locations, which included schools, on the car of a Holocaust survivor, in a cemetery and at the Florida Holocaust Museum,” the ADL said.

Nearly half of these incidents happened in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.