A large number of flyers containing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories blaming Jews for covid where distributed in parts of California and North Carolina over the weekend, police said.
The flyers were found in Pasadena and Beverley Hills, California as well as in Greensboro, North Carolina on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, Newsweek reported.
On Sunday morning, residents of the three cities found the anti-Semitic flyers, in plastic bags and held down with pebbles, placed inside their morning newspapers.
In each case, Jewish and non-Jewish houses were targeted by whoever left the flyers.
Pasadena police said that more than 200 flyers were found in the city in the first few hours of Sunday morning, KTLA reported.
The flyers were captioned “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish" and contained a list of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
"The distribution of [anti-Semitic] fliers in Pasadena and other Southern California communities over the weekend is abhorrent and totally goes against the values of our city and its residents," Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo said in a statement.
"Our thoughts are with our residents and all those hurt by these disgusting acts. We know Pasadena residents – of all faiths – will to stand together and speak out against hatred in all forms.”
The anti-Semitic flyers in Greensboro were mostly dropped in the Cornwallis Drive area, WGHP reported.
On Sunday, Jewish community leaders in the city, including Temple Emanuel, Beth David Synagogue and Greensboro Jewish Federation, condemned the leaflets.
“This morning a number of members of the local Jewish community, and others, received a vile piece of anti-Semitic hatred, delivered with their newspaper. It seeks to spread anti-Semitic, blatantly false, and evil conspiracies about the Covid-19 virus and our nation's efforts to combat its spread," they said in a statement. "We are not the first community in which this has happened. Our hearts go out to all those who have received this disgraceful propaganda. Hatred has no place in our community.”
The incidents come less than a month after similar flyers weighed down by bags of rice were found on front yards during the first day of Hanukkah in Beverly Hills.
Beverly Hills police described the distribution of those flyers – which blamed the Jewish community for the COVID pandemic, followed by a long list of prominent Jews in official government or healthcare positions – as a “hate speech incident” and opened an investigation.