Anti-Semitic flyers discovered in San Diego neighborhood
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (NBC, KYMA/KECY) - Anti-Semitic flyers have been discovered in another San Diego neighborhood. It happened over the weekend in San Carlos in the middle of the night.
Some residents of Ballinger Avenue in San Carlos got a rude awakening this weekend.
"It was on our driveway on Saturday late morning we found it," said Hayley Chambine, a homeowner.
Chambine and her neighbor, Stephanie Benjamini, say the neighborhood was papered with anti-semitic flyers.
"We love it here, which is why it was disappointing to see it happen," Benjamini expressed.
Fighting flyer with flyer
Benjamini and her husband, Grady Gumner, walked the neighborhood and collected all they could.
One version, found in the couple's driveway, had Anti-Defamation League (ADL) at the top. The hateful message was under the fold.
"To see that was really upsetting. To be raising a Jewish daughter, it was really upsetting and scary to think that that person was in our neighborhood right at our front door step," Gumner shared.
This is the second time the San Carlos neighborhood was targeted by this campaign. This summer, similar flyers showed up in Allied Gardens, Del Cerro and reportedly in La Mesa.
Someone in the neighborhood is fighting flyer with flyer shortly after the anti-Semitic handbills were distributed this showed up. The title: "How to Create Kindness in Your World." It has 13 separate steps one can take, including acts of compassion, active listening and mentorship.
"It's nice to see there are people in the neighborhood in the community who have the opposite feeling and spread that kindness," Chambine remarked.
Hate-littering ordinance
San Diego City Councilman Raul Campillo is working on a hate-littering ordinance. If passed, the distribution of such materials could be a misdemeanor charge punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.
"What next? Yeh, it is a flyer now in some ways harmless, but in other ways, what do other people feel emboldened to do?" Benjamini asked.
Benjamini and her husband agree: The war between Israel and Hamas awakened a sleeping hostility.
"It's part of just a larger anti-Semitic movement where these kind of behaviors, people feel emboldened to speak out against Jews," Gumner explained.
While the war between Israel and Hamas is being fought overseas, the word of words is further reaching.
