ATLANTA — DeKalb County Police confirm they are investigating anti-Semitic and Islamophobic fliers apparently distributed in DeKalb County in mid-December, including in the Toco Hills area where the Jewish community gathered this weekend in solidarity after an anti-Semitic stabbing attack in New York.
The paper said Zach Williams, a security official for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, described them as "extreme in nature, highly anti-Semitic and offensive."
The paper published photos of the fliers. One included Holocaust denial text and was bordered with Nazi swastikas, as well as a deeply anti-Semitic rat illustration.
The paper reported that flier also included the text "Hitler was right" written in Yiddish.
The other flier included a long Islamophobic screed.
"Flyers like this have become all too common," Anti-Defamation League Southeast Regional Director Allison Padilla-Goodman said. "The Jewish Community is tired of the harassment, tired of the assaults, tired of the onset of antisemitism that we are experiencing. The flyers are just another onset."
There was no evident claim of responsibility by any group in the fliers.
According to tracking by the Southern Poverty Law Center through August this year, white supremacist fliers have been distributed throughout the country, most typically in the Northeast.
In Georgia, there were nine flyering incidents reported this year through August. In 2018 there were 20.
According to Anti-Defamation League research, in 2018 there was a 182 percent increase in the distribution of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic fliers, banners and associated materials. The group said there were nearly 1,200 cases reported last year, compared with 421 in 2017.
In 2018, the ADL tracked six flyering incidents in Atlanta attributed to two white supremacist groups, four by Patriot Front and another two by Identity Evropa.
In a statement, the Georgia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called for a robust police response in the DeKalb County incident.
"Dekalb County law enforcement must identify whoever posted these disgusting anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim flyers before the culprits escalate their hate speech into a hate crime," CAIR-Georgia Executive Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said in a statement. "If incidents like this occur in the future, law enforcement should immediately alert the targeted communities so that we can take appropriate precautionary steps."
On Saturday, five people were stabbed at a rabbi's Hannukah gathering in a New York City suburb. The Atlanta Jewish Community gathered in Toco Hills on Sunday to light a menorah in solidarity, celebrating the final night of the eight-day festival.
"How difficult it is at this time to celebrate in public knowing that there are so many people out there who just hate the Jewish people," Rabbi Peter S. Berg of The Temple in Atlanta said.
DeKalb County Police's Homeland Security unit is investigating the fliers, the department said.
Late Monday, DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond issued a statement saying, "DeKalb County strongly rejects all acts of religious intolerance and bigotry that threaten the safety of our 750,000 residents.”
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