Huntington Town latest target of antisemitic flyers

Huntington has become the latest Long Island target for hate groups who distribute antisemitic and racist literature, officials said last week. 

Town of Huntington officials said a hate group left a flyer identifying Jewish members of President Biden’s administration and marking them with an Israeli flag at the home of a resident last week. The flyer promoted a website, which had been removed from most social media sites due to its overtly anti-Semitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including denials that the Holocaust has actually occurred. 

 "Goyim Defense League," the name of an antisemitic group active in New York, was printed at the bottom of the flyer, Huntington Councilman Dave Bennardo said. 

"People have a right to say these horrific things," Bennardo said, "and we have a right to stand with the persecuted. This is not political. This is insanity."

The resident who found the flyer contacted Suffolk police and her rabbi. The rabbi notified the Town of Huntington’s Anti-Bias Task Force, officials said. 

“Huntington has no place for hate and we will stand in solidarity with any individual or group experiencing bias,” according to the statement from the town.

Antisemitic flyers were distributed in Freeport, Rockville Centre, Oceanside and Long Beach last summer, Nassau officials said in August. Antisemitic graffiti was also found on a sign outside the Hempstead Town Hall in August. Officials believe those flyers were distributed by a group called the Goyim Defense League, which the Anti-Defamation League says is active in New York, among other states. 

Nationwide, the Anti-Defamation League reported earlier this month, white supremacist propaganda efforts, which include the distribution of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ flyers, banners, posters and graffiti, increased 38% in 2022. The ADL said there were 6,751 white supremacist propaganda incidents in the country last year compared to 4,876 in 2021. 

The Goyim Defense League, the Texas-based Patriot Front, and White Lives Matter — are responsible for 93% of those incidents, the ADL said. 

Suffolk police said detectives investigated the flyer incident in Huntington but determined there was no crime committed. Experts on free speech law said the First Amendment protects the right to distribute the literature, no matter the content. 

"The framers of the Constitution never anticipated these nuts," Bennardo said.

“The Town Board supports our residents as well as the Huntington Anti-Bias task force,” Huntington officials said in their statement, “which is resolute in their contention that no member of our Huntington family should ever feel singled out or threatened due to their race, religion, gender, sexual identity, or political beliefs.”

With John Asbury