Eric Turnquist, 50, a trade compliance attorney, didn’t have one on his welcome mat, but spotted a flyer on a neighbor’s lawn during his morning bike ride. His parents, who also live in the neighborhood, received one, as did at least ten people on a local neighborhood Facebook group.
“We get the standard Jehovah’s Witnesses stuff or apocalyptic church gathering people, but I’ve never seen anything this offensive,” he says. “I’ve heard of it before, but I’ve never held one in my hands.”
The flyers promote the Goyim Defense League, who run an online television station. They are known for their offensive flyer campaigns, which blame Jewish people for everything from COVID to the Russian-Ukrainian war. They have also accused Disney of grooming children for Jewishness and other ridiculous claims. The Middle East Media Research Institute labels them as a hate group.
The Jersey Village campaign is dominated by a buff pencil drawing of Satan with blood dripping from his horns and the headline “every single aspect of the Jewish Talmud is Satanic.” The flyer then goes on to wildly and inaccurately quote the Talmud for various verses. These include:
*Yebamoth 98a: “all non-Jew children are animals”– this section actually deals with defining appropriate family lineages such as half-sisters, and does not declare gentiles to be animals.
*Sanhedrin 57a: “When a Jew murders a non-Jew there will be no death penalty” – this section only says that no punishment will come from a Jewish court where a gentile one has superior jurisdiction.
*Yalkut 245c: “Extermination of Christians is a necessary sacrifice” – This part of the Talmud doesn’t even exist as cited. There are some references related to this sentiment, but they are the statements of an extreme Rabbi who had witnessed atrocities committed by the Romans being quoted, not an actual teaching or ruling.
Overall, the flyer is a vile collection of mis- and disinformation aimed at furthering global anti-Semitism at a time when fascism is on the rise in the United States. For Turnquist, who identifies as a committed progressive Christian, the campaign is cause of sadness.
“More than anything else , I’m sad,” he says. “That someone in 2023 is this profoundly broken. What am I even supposed to do with this? I’m not going to that website. They’re not convincing me of anything. I pity this person, Their life must suck.”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic flyer campaigns were up by 38 percent in 2022, riding high on a wave of conspiracy theories buoyed by the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. Several groups beyond the Goyim Defense League, such as Patriot Front, White Lives Matter, and the Aryan Freedom Network, have large presences in Texas.
