Anti-Semitic posters surface at University of Minnesota

March 21, 2018 at 3:32AM
Greg Brooker, Acting U.S. Attorney, MN, left, talked with Steve Hunegs, JCRC Executive Director before the meeting.
Greg Brooker, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, left, with Steve Hunegs, JCRC executive director. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Two Jewish groups are condemning anti-Semitic fliers that appeared on the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus this week.

The fliers, which featured Nazi-era symbols, blamed prominent Jewish politicians for attacking "our beloved 2nd Amendment."

"We call on all people of goodwill to recoil at these ideologies and tactics," said a joint statement by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, and Minnesota Hillel, a Jewish student organization.

The fliers, headlined "Why Are Jews After Our Guns," listed Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer and other Jewish lawmakers by name, next to images of the star-shaped badges that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. The fliers said they were "brought to you by" a neo-Nazi group that was linked to previous anti-Semitic posters on campus.

Steven Hunegs, executive director of the council, described the latest flier as "ugly, pernicious, malicious" anti-Semitism. "They identify a hot-button issue, identify it with the Jews and then use it to stoke resentment against the Jews," he said.

University police were notified about the incident, he said, and the fliers have been removed.

Maura Lerner

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