SARASOTA, Fla. — More antisemitic fliers popped up over the weekend in a Sarasota neighborhood. Sarasota police have said they are investigating the source of the hate messages.
The anti-Jewish fliers showed up on Wisteria Lane and the Arlington Park neighborhood overnight and police started getting calls about them on Saturday morning.
The fliers showed up in Ziploc bags, weighed down with rice. They read: "Every Single Aspect of the Ukraine Russia War is Jewish."
This would be the second time in a month that such hate-filled fliers have been distributed in neighborhoods. Similar fliers showed up in the Cherokee Park neighborhood in February, which referenced COVID-19 propaganda.
But neighbors and leaders in the community have responded to the hate message with their own message of unity
More than 1,000 yard signs that read "United Against Hate" have now been placed in front of several homes across Sarasota since the February incident. Community leaders have urged neighbors to use the signs to drown out the hate message popping up in their driveways.
"We don't need to respond every time they come up with a new flyer or a new conspiracy theory," said Shep Englander of the Jewish Foundation of Sarasota-Manatee.
Englander. who has been following the emergence of the flyers across cities in Florida and other states. said they are coming from white supremacist groups.
"These guys are driving into town under the cover of darkness and they litter people's lawns with nonsense. In some places maybe it'll divide neighbor against neighbor but not here," Englander said.
More calls have come for more signs with the latest wave of the fliers.
"This came from the neighbors. They said no, we want to show that it's not going to work and that we're united," he said.
Several neighbors we spoke to who didn't want to go on camera said they put the fliers in the trash.
Sarasota police said only two people called in to make a report about the fliers.