NEWTON, MASS. (WHDH) - Newton police are investigating after messages of hate were found across the city.
Eric, a Jewish man, was walking his dog early Sunday morning when he came across an anti-Semitic flyer posted inside a book swap box on Cottage Street.
“It was right here, front and center,” Eric said. “They didn’t even try to hide it and I guess it was something they were very proud of.”
The flyers, which included racist caricatures and connected Jewish people to pedophilia, were found around the city on four different streets.
“It was very upsetting to see, I just was speechless,” Eric said. “You don’t want to see anti-Semitism and or racism of any kind in your neighborhood or anywhere, but especially when it’s targeted at you, it really hits home. It was like every stereotype of a Jewish person that you would see was depicted on there.”
The flyers left neighbors shocked and disgusted.
“It’s deranged,” Newton resident Terri Casper said. “Nothing is surprising these days. There is a lot of hate that’s been stirred up in the last two years.”
Newton police do not believe there was a specific target and that the flyers appear to be random.
Investigators say the incident is the first in the city in 10 years and residents are glad to see police taking it seriously.
“If it goes uninvestigated, that’s a way of giving a message, and we don’t want that message,” Casper said.
In a statement, Anti-Defamation League New England Director Robert Trestan said, “It’s a pretty vile image and description of the most classic anti-Semitic stereotypes, demonizing Jews and the Jewish religion.”
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