Billboards in the Bay Area, funded by a local woman in honor of a friend whose parents died in the Holocaust, are calling attention to a startling national rise in antisemitism.
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Drivers crossing the Bay Bridge or traveling through San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood can see the bright pink, thought-provoking signs, which are part of the JewBelong's #EndJewHate campaign. The online platform also placed billboards in New York, Miami and Toronto.
JewBelong co-founder Archie Gottesman told KCBS Radio that Cathy Marcus paid for the Bay Area billboards in honor of her friend, Miriam Javitch, who recently passed away and whose friends died in the Holocaust. Javitch feared a rise in antisemitism in the U.S.
"Antisemitism is, like, the most amazing, shape-shifting hate," Gottesman said in an interview. "Either Jews are all-powerful, and they started COVID, and they run the world, or Jews are vermin, and they should all be extinct."
"Most people do not people have hate for Jewish people, and having an awareness campaign about the issue is important," Gottesman added.
One of the campaign's billboard reads, "We're just 75 years from the gas chambers. So no, a billboard calling out Jew hate isn't an overreaction." Another says, "Does your church need armed guards? 'Cause our synagogue does."
The billboards, placed at 10th and Sheridan Streets, 6th and Brannan Streets and the 2nd Street Bay Bridge exit in San Francisco, as well as near the Palo Alto University Avenue exit along U.S. 101, come following the distribution of disturbing antisemitic flyers over the last two months.
Flyers created by an antisemitic troll group known as the Goyim Defense League, whose leader lives in Petaluma, have been dropped on doorsteps in San Francisco, Marin County, Napa, Berkeley, Danville and Palo Alto since the end of January, as well as elsewhere around the U.S.
"It wasn't like, 'Oh, one or two.' There were thousands of flyers distributed in the Bay Area, saying, like, 'Oh, whose fault was COVID? Jews,' " Gottesman said of the flyers.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, 2019 had the most recorded antisemitic incidents of any year in the U.S. since the organization began tracking them in 1979. The following year, 2020, was third.
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