Gottheimer's Campaign Calls On Garrett's To Condemn Distribution Of Anti-Semitic Fliers

Fifth District Democratic candidate Josh Gottheimer’s campaign called out Rep. Scott Garrett to condemn fliers depicting Gottheimer as a devil who is owned by “big media.”

Gottheimer, a former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton from Wyckoff, is trying to make it that Garrett does not serve an eighth term in Congress.

“The suggestion of media conspiracies and satanic imagery are frequently-used anti-Semitic caricatures, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda used in Nazi Germany,” Gottheimer’s campaign said in a statement. Gottheimer is Jewish.

Gottheimer’s campaign said the fliers do not indicate who created them.

The flies have been distributed throughout the district, including a Westwood elementary school, Bergenfield and Westwood high schools, and train stations in Emerson, Hillsdale, Park Ridge, Tenafly, and Woodcliff Lake, Gottheimer’s campaign claimed.

A copy of one of the fliers Gottheimer's campaign said was distributed throughout the 5th Congressional District — Courtesy of Josh4Congress

"We call on Scott Garrett to immediately renounce these fliers, call on his supporters to stop peddling hatred and anti-Semitism, and apologize to the Jewish community and all his constituents for actions that have absolutely no place in our society or our politics,” Gottheimer’s campaign manager Alexandra Ball said in a statement.

Gottheimer’s campaign said anti-Semitic comments have also been posted to his political Facebook page since the fliers were handed out.

Garrett’s campaign manager Sarah Neibart spoke out against the fliers and the imagery on them.

"My family fled Nazi-occupied Europe to escape persecution because of their Jewish heritage. I find this flyer to be disgusting, and I would never authorize such a deplorable document to be produced by our campaign or any affiliated group,” Neibart said in a statement. “I would also call on the media to get an honest answer from the Gottheimer campaign as to whether this is a political ploy manufactured by them to fabricate a hate crime.”

Neibart said the fliers should be turned over to the authorities to see if their origin can be determined.

Mudslinging in the campaign has increased with less than a week to go before Election Day, with each candidate calling the other a liar. The candidates held dueling press conferences Wednesday regarding an allegedly fake letter Garrett’s campaign claimed Gottheimer manufactured.

“It’s shocking and deeply saddening that Garrett’s supporters are spreading this sort of hatred and bigotry in this campaign – and in our kids’ schools no less,” said Ball. “We call on Scott Garrett to immediately renounce these fliers, call on his supporters to stop peddling hatred and anti-Semitism, and apologize to the Jewish community and all his constituents for actions that have absolutely no place in our society or our politics.”

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Rep. Scott Garrett and Josh Gottheimer — Wikimedia Commons and Josh4Congress