A Northside business owner is disgusted by the antisemitic flyers someone distributed in the area

CINCINNATI — Disgusted and outraged.

That’s how the people of Northside feel after a woman handed out antisemitic flyers at various Northside businesses.

Terry Donald along with his wife own Castaways Recycled Style. Donald says a woman came into his story Saturday morning and gave them several pieces of paper. She told them she was doing some "political activism." Once they saw what was on those papers, they were shocked.

“Disgusting, ridiculous, it’s just so silly. I mean it’s so far from reality trying to blame. It’s almost like this person or the people behind this are trying to blame every bit of the worlds’ woes on people who happen to be Jewish,” Donald said.

Rabbi Ari Ballaban is the Director at the Jewish Community Relations Council in Cincinnati. He heard about the flyers through a colleague.

“The content that is being distributed is obviously disturbing. We would love to see it stop. This is unfortunately becoming a more and more common occurrence,” Ballaban said. “There probably isn’t a month that goes by when in some part of Cincinnati flyers more or less like this are being distributed.”

Donald isn’t a part of the Jewish community, but he is very concerned about the morality of spreading hatred. He added the Westside is very diverse and worries Northside is being targeted because of how diverse the community is.

“Hatred on account of religion doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “You kind of hope that it would die off, that racism and hatred and just hatred would just die off but it is passed along generation to generation.”

According to a report by the American Jewish Committee, 41 percent of Jewish Americans feel less secure in America. It’s up 10 percent from two years ago.

“Antisemitism is rising in the United States right now. A recent poll put out by the AJC the American Jewish Committee showed that it was a bit more than 4 in 5 Jewish Americans say that there’s been a sharp uptick in antisemitism over the last five years,” Ballaban said.

Ballaban noted this is nothing new for the Jewish community.

“The unfortunate reality is this is nothing new. It wasn’t new in the 40s in Germany. Antisemitic vitriol has existed for about as long as Jews have existed,” he said.

Ballaban and Donald said the flyers distributed in Northside are clearly not true.

“It certainly wouldn’t survive a superficial Google search. This is meant to create hate and nothing else,” Ballaban said.

“It takes you about 30 seconds on your phone, hit Google, look this stuff up and it’s just not true. There’s nothing new about what they’re passing around,” Donald said.

They both agreed there is nothing illegal about this woman distributing these flyers; even though the message on them is hateful.

“This is garbage and we should treat it that way, but we also do need to keep an eye on this to get a sense of where the problem is getting better or worse,” Ballban said.

In an emailed statement, Chief External Relations & Community Engagement Officer of the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center Jackie Congedo said “the allegations in these flyers represent age old antisemitic and conspiratorial lies that have been used for centuries to persecute and marginalize Jewish people. While it may seem like a small act, we know from history that words and rhetoric matter, and contribute to the normalization of hate. However, what defines us in these moments is not the hateful behavior, but how we respond to it. The fact that the Northside community members stood up immediately is an example of what we should all do when we are confronted with hate. This is a moment to showcase upstander behavior. Visit us at the Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center at Union Terminal to learn from history and be inspired and empowered to be the upstander our world needs today.”

If you see or get an antisemitic flyers, Ballaban said it’s best to throw it away and let an organization like the Cincinnati Jewish Community Relations Council know. He added they track where these types of incidents occur to see if they are getting better or worse in an area.