Anti-Semitic Leaflets Condemned

Several dozen public officials, local faith leaders, and community members gathered on the Green for the first day of Passover — not to celebrate the holiday’s onset, but to condemn hate speech following the distribution of anti-semitic leaflets around Hamden and New Haven this past week.

“Hate has no home in New Haven!” Mayor Justin Elicker declared. ​“Time and time again, in incidents of hate, we stand together,” he said, recalling protests by New Haveners in response to national events from the racially-motivated Buffalo shootings to the Capitol riots, both of which he said were ​“rooted in hate.” 

The flyers in question featured anti-semitic and racist language while complaining about an initiative by a Yale student to rename Whitney Avenue given inventor Eli Whitney’s controversial legacy. They were folded into plastic Ziploc bags and dropped on the street and sidewalks along Whitney Avenue in both New Haven and Hamden as well as along some parallel streets.

Assistant Police Chief Bertram Ettienne said that the New Haven Police Department is currently investigating the situation and has called on the FBI for support as well. They have not yet identified who may be responsible for proliferating the flyers. Elicker said he suspects just around one or two individuals had been involved in actually distributing the literature.

“It’s hurtful to people to walk out of their door and see this kind of crap,” said Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett, who first received reports of flyers with hateful language deposited around Whitney Avenue in late March. ​“We need to acknowledge it. We need to name it. And we need to report it.”

Long-time New Havener Paul Wessel shared that ​“a couple days ago I walked out in front of my house and saw what I thought was some garbage. It turned out to be the flier we all talked about today.”

“It’s all intended to divide us,” he said of the hateful leaflets. However, he said, ​“I don’t feel hurt by this — I feel emboldened by this.” 

Leadership from the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven to Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green to Hamden’s Christian Tabernacle Baptist Church to Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services were just a handful of community representatives to show up and speak at Wednesday’s press conference.

Gerald Barker, the president of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, said that while the first night of Passover remembers the exodus of Israelites from slavery in Egypt, recalling ​“the bitterness of bondage and the sweet taste of freedom,” the reality is that ​“we can’t escape the bondage of hatred, which is insidious in all its forms.”

The holiday should serve as motivation to ​“never give up the vision of a world without hate,” whether that’s school bullying, racism, gender-based violence, or anti-semitism, he said.

Rabbi Brian Immerman of Hamden’s Congregation Mishkan Israel said that he received a phone call from someone who had, like Wessel, unfortunately stumbled upon one of the fliers. ​“I called the police and the anti-defamation league,” he recalled her saying. ​“I don’t know why I’m calling you.”

Immerman knew: ​“She needed me to tell her she is not alone.

“She’s a member of the Jewish community and of the Greater New Haven community.”