Anti-Semitic Kavanaugh Fliers Pervade College Campuses across the U.S.

In the wake of Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial appointment to the Supreme Court, attention turned to four U.S. college campuses where anti-Semitic fliers pervaded student centers and classrooms. Fliers posted at UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, Vassar College, and Marist College blamed Jews for stirring the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. New reports claim that the same fliers were canvassed on the doors of various civil society organizations in Iowa, such as the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa and Planned Parenthood Health Centers in Des Moines.

The handouts portray an image of Kavanaugh surrounded by caricatures of Jewish members of the U.S. Senate along with Jewish billionaire George Soros. Each individual is marked by a Star of David. Christine Blasey Ford, one of Kavanaugh’s accusers who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in late September, and the outspoken anti-Trump attorney Michael Avenatti are also depicted in the collage of characters with “Good Goy” written on their foreheads. University administrative officials were quick to respond to the proliferation of fliers. UC-Davis Chancellor Gary S. May reproached them as “reprehensible” and called out those responsible for violating the university’s posting policy. .At the bottom of each flyer is a claim from “your local Stormer book club,” indicating that they were a project of Daily Stormer Book Club (SBC) chapters that are embedded in local communities throughout the United States.

 

SBC chapters are a syndicate of The Daily Stormer, an online media presence founded by Andrew Anglin in 2013. Since its beginning, the Daily Stormer has espoused hatred and animosity toward Jews. Anglin named the site after Der Stürmer, a pernicious anti-Semitic weekly that Hitler devoutly followed during the Nazi period. The site rallies young, American Neo-Nazi sympathizers who deny the Holocaust and embrace ideas underpinned by white supremacy and male dominance. Stormer fanatics have hailed Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court as a milestone victory. Concomitantly, they chastised Jews and other individuals who posed a perceived obstacle to the historic appointment.

The SBC fliers evoke classic anti-Semitic stereotypes that were especially profound during Hitler’s rise to power. They demonize Jews as political operatives who leverage their power to manipulate a greater scheme or conspiracy to their personal benefit. This portrayal of the Jew is transhistorical, a phenomenon that has cast a lingering haunt over the global Jewish community for centuries. Most unsettling about the Stormer’s recent provocation is not their explicit display of prototypical anti-Semitism, but instead that their response to an especially charged, divisive political issue was fallaciously anti-Semitic. To brand such a high-profile controversy like Kavanaugh’s appointment as a Jewish-related issue with absolutely no basis is extremely troubling and presents a much larger issue.

Scapegoating Jews during heightened periods of chaos is in not unique. However, to see it pervade college campuses, where anti-Semitism in recent years has taken shape in anti-Israelism or anti-Zionism, breeds a new cause for alarm. The SBC fliers beg serious question for Jewish students across the country. Should the next political quarrel or heated debate come to campus, who will be able to read past the spurious rhetoric? Who will condemn the baseless hatred? Who will be equipped with the knowledge to historicize such virulent anti-Semitic claims? It’s too delicate of a time to overlook the SBC fliers as a mere feature of the larger dispute over Kavanaugh. Failing to acknowledge their significance is to disparage the past and create a vacuum for others to evoke bigoted anti-Semitism on college campuses in the not so distant future.