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The antisemitic propaganda group Goyim TV has relocated to Florida, an emerging hotspot for extremists
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — The functional headquarters and nerve center of the nation’s most prolific antisemitic propaganda group have moved from California’s Bay Area to Florida.
Jon Minadeo Jr., the leader of Goyim TV, announced the move in videos and social media posts this week, explaining that he had grown increasingly isolated in his hometown of Petaluma and saw Florida as fertile ground for the hate group’s activities.
The announcement came in a dramatic, Hollywood-style movie trailer replete with drone shots of the Florida coast, alligators and flamingos. “My time in this state is over,” Minadeo says in a voiceover.
A loose network of antisemites, white supremacists and virulently anti-gay activists, Goyim TV — which is both a website and the name of Minadeo’s business registered in California — focuses its efforts on spreading anti-Jewish propaganda. Its followers have claimed responsibility for hundreds of antisemitic flyer drops in more than 40 states over the past two years.
The flyers, which are often distributed in plastic baggies, blame Jews for the Covid pandemic, for the war in Ukraine and for “gun control”and represent a significant portion of the antisemitic incidents recorded by national antisemitism watchdogs.
“GDL’s overarching goal is to cast aspersions on Jews and spread antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories,” an Anti-Defamation League report says.
In 2022, the group “more than tripled” the number of propaganda acts targeting Jews, “making them feel vulnerable all over the United States,” the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, said during a recent media appearance.
Jon Minadeo, Jr. pins antisemitic flyers to vehicle dashboards in Novato, California in Marin County, near Arthur and Washington Streets. Video published Nov. 23. pic.twitter.com/NO6uBCm1ff
— Gabe Stutman (@jnewsgabe) November 28, 2022
The most widely viewed videos on Goyim TV are hosted by Minadeo, who works alongside a cadre of supporters known as the Goyim Defense League to help keep the website running, evade takedowns and orchestrate propaganda events “IRL,” or “in real life.” The terms “Goyim TV” and the “Goyim Defense League” are often used interchangeably by watchers of the hate group’s activities.
The group has gained widespread publicity in part because of several banner drops; one such stunt troubled many in Los Angeles in October. Seeking to capitalize on the mainstreaming of antisemitism from celebrities such as the rapper Ye, Goyim TV hung a banner over the 405 freeway claiming “Kanye is right about the Jews.” That phrase subsequently appeared in other public stunts, including in Florida, where it was displayed during a college football game in Jacksonville.
Minadeo, who grew up in Northern California, had for years recorded near-daily livestreams in a makeshift studio at his home in Petaluma. In the livestreams, which have continued from Florida and are viewed in real time by hundreds of people who simultaneously donate money, Minadeo rails against Jews, Black people, Latinos and LGBTQ people, spouting a litany of slurs, Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories.
Pictures of the Goyim Defense League banners supporting Kanye West’s comments about Jews went viral after they were captured in Los Angeles, Oct. 22, 2022. (Screenshot from Twitter)
He sells and ships packets of 500 flyers, encouraging his viewers to pass out as many as possible, usually in the middle of the night. Minadeo praises those who drop the flyers, calling them “paper goys,” and rewards anyone who earns coverage on TV news broadcasts with free merchandise, including antisemitic T-shirts and bars of soap that say “wash the Jew away.”
Despite his close family ties and following in Northern California, Minadeo had increasingly felt besieged by negative press and by criticism of his behavior by authorities. Minadeo’s family owns Dinucci’s Italian Dinners, a historic restaurant and popular stop en route to the Sonoma Coast, and a source close to Minadeo said the 39-year-old once worked as a waiter there, one of his last real jobs.
But his reputation had suffered locally amid a flood of coverage of his provocative antisemitic propaganda operation in J. The Jewish News of Northern California and other Bay Area media organizations.
And he had made enemies. Over a year ago his house was vandalized, he said, and later someone “threatened to burn down my house.” Minadeo said he never felt the authorities took his complaints seriously.
“Jews are getting to intimidate me, vandalize my house, slander me, assault me, and the police do absolutely nothing,” he said.
Can confirm his house was in fact vandalized, and Antifa took credit for the crime.https://t.co/2xOZSmVrY9
— Gabe Stutman (@jnewsgabe) December 15, 2022
North Bay police have called out the flyer campaigns as “hate incidents,” which Minadeo said has damaged his reputation.
“You’re essentially putting a green light on my head with the community, to say that I’m some bad person because I’m talking truth about Jews,” he said.
Though Minadeo says he does not support violence, his content is rife with violent imagery and messages. One digital background that appears frequently on his livestream is a photo of the train tracks leading to Auschwitz. Much of the casual language used in the Goyim TV online universe is extremely violent; when Minadeo wants to point out something he doesn’t like, for example, he instructs his followers to “gas” it, or kill it, using a reference to the Holocaust.
He also encourages his followers to harass journalists and activists who cover or speak out against his activities.
Minadeo hopes Florida will be more hospitable to him and his worldview, and he may have reason to believe that to be true. A recent report from the ADL described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by emerging white supremacist groups including White Lives Matter, Sunshine State Nationalists, NatSoc Florida and Florida Nationalists.
Minadeo and Goyim TV have partnered with neo-Nazi elements in Florida on antisemitic stunts in the past, and the Goyim Defense League has been extremely active in the state. Last May, Minadeo and his followers held a “protest” outside a Holocaust memorial center in Maitland, an Orlando suburb, carrying bullhorns and holding up signs denying the Holocaust and saying “Jews promote homosexuality.” In October, he and others describing themselves as “laser Nazis” used a light projection to superimpose the “Kanye is right about the Jews” message at the Jacksonville football game, which was attended by 75,000 people.
Jon Minadeo Jr. of Petaluma, leader of the Goyim Defense League, celebrates a digital scroll reading “Kanye is right about the Jews,” projected onto TIAA Bank Field after the Florida-Georgia rivalry game in Jacksonville on Saturday night. Attendance was 75K pic.twitter.com/bbMB2EgRZ5
— Gabe Stutman (@jnewsgabe) October 30, 2022
Minadeo has pledged to continue Goyim TV’s propaganda efforts and daily livestreams from Florida, where at least one other prominent member of the hate group already lives: Dominic Di Giorgio, a tech-savvy GDL operative known as “Ned Flanders.”
In its video announcing the move, Goyim TV showed images of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Jerusalem signing an antisemitism bill and praying at the Western Wall. “Keep the pressure on,” a message on the video said. “This has to end.”
Parts of Florida have large Jewish populations, including Tampa and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, which has one of the largest Jewish populations of any metro area in the United States.
The Secure Community Network, which monitors threats to Jewish communities across North America, did not address Goyim TV specifically in a statement but said it monitors threats to Jewish communities closely, and over the last six months it had addressed “risk events” affecting over 4,000 Jewish institutions and referred “over 225 individuals to law enforcement for follow-up.”
“As the official safety and security organization for the Jewish community in North America, the Secure Community Network works closely with local Jewish Federations, community leaders, and law enforcement partners to keep the Jewish community safe and secure,” said the group’s leader, Michael Masters.
A version of this piece originally ran in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and is reprinted with permission.
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The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration
ס׳האָט זיך לעצטנס געשאַפֿן אַ נײַער סאָרט לייענקרײַז דורך פֿייסבוק, וווּ מע לערנט תּורה אויף ייִדיש צוזאַמען.
אינעם לייענקרײַז, וואָס הייסט „די ייִדישיסטישע ישיבֿה“, לייענט מען חומש מיט רש״י — סײַ אויפֿן אָריגינעלן לשון־קודש סײַ אויף ייִדיש־טײַטש. „די גרופּע איז אָפֿן פֿאַר אַלע מינים מענטשן,“ האָט דערקלערט דער לינגוויסט און ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט לייזער בורקאָ, וועלכער האָט אָרגאַניזירט די גרופּע. „פֿרויען און מענער, ייִדן און נישט־ייִדן, געי און ׳גלײַך׳. נײַע תּלמידים דאַרפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ייִדיש גוט, אָבער זיי דאַרפֿן נישט האָבן קיין תּורהדיקן הינטערגרונט.“
די גרופּע טרעפֿט זיך יעדן דינסטיק דורך פֿייסבוק. נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, שטעלט זיך אין קאָנטאַקט מיט בורקאָ, אויפֿן אַדרעס leyzertag@gmail.com אָדער דורך פֿייסבוק.
The post The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration appeared first on The Forward.
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A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall
(JTA) — When David Freedman discovered a long-forgotten photo album in his parents’ Montreal basement last year, he found nearly 100 pages of century-old photographs from his grandfather’s year in British Mandate Palestine, capturing Jerusalem street scenes, market stalls and holy sites.
The photographs were not only century-old and in near-perfect condition, but included figures who would later become central to Jewish medical and political history, among them Israel’s future first president Chaim Weizmann, Jerusalem ophthalmologist Abraham Ticho, malaria researcher Israel Kligler, future British prime minister Winston Churchill and Herbert Samuel, Britain’s first high commissioner for Palestine.
David Freedman said he knew he had “struck gold” when he found the album, which had been untouched for decades. “I realized in disbelief I was looking at extraordinary images of Jerusalem,” he said.
Though Freedman said the album showed his grandfather’s “passion for skillful, impromptu photography,” it was images of a site that epitomizes endurance that are having the broadest impact.
Freedman’s pictures of the Western Wall has inspired a public appeal by the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum, which is asking people to look through old albums and attics for photographs, postcards and other visual material that could help expand the historical record of Judaism’s holiest site.
The request comes ahead of a major exhibition opening in 2027 marking 60 years since the 1967 Six-Day War brought the wall, known in Hebrew as the Kotel, under Jewish control for the first time in nearly two millennia.
Although the Western Wall is now one of the most photographed sites in the world, museum curators say the visual record of earlier decades remains surprisingly fragmented, with many of the most intimate images likely still tucked away in private collections and family albums.
“The Western Wall, the Kotel, in its simplest form, is a structure of ancient stones. Yet its true meaning has never resided in the stones alone — it has been shaped and elevated by the countless individuals who have stood before it over the centuries,” Eilat Lieber, the museum’s director and chief curator, said in a statement.
Next year’s exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall” and curated by Shimon Lev and Yael Brandt, will be the first large-scale exhibition dedicated entirely to the Western Wall, the museum said, and will trace its transformation over nearly 2,000 years. It will be one of the major exhibitions staged by the Tower of David Museum since it reopened in 2023 after a $50 million renovation of its ancient citadel complex.
The wall, the exposed section of an ancient retaining wall around the Temple Mount, the site of the biblical Jewish temples, has long been Judaism’s most sacred places of prayer and pilgrimage. From 1948 until the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured the Old City and East Jerusalem from Jordan, Jews were barred from going there.
Among its most iconic images was David Rubinger’s photograph of three Israeli paratroopers standing at the wall shortly after its capture, looking upward in a mixture of awe and disbelief. The picture was taken 59 years ago this week.
Abraham Orkin Freedman, a Canadian physician and Zionist activist, took his photographs before the site was so contested. He arrived in Palestine in July 1920, just as Britain was replacing military rule with a civil administration, and stayed until 1922, serving during that period as managing director of Hadassah Hospital. His grandson David, also a doctor, said the album’s timing gives it much of its historical value, with photographs that capture people in the streets, as well as the terrain and buildings of Jerusalem during the nascent years of the British Mandate.
Among the images Freedman uncovered, the one that struck him most was a photograph of women praying side by side with men at the oldest part of the Western Wall, a scene far removed from the gender-separated prayer sections at the site today. The question of mixed-gender prayer at the Wall remains politically charged, with a recent High Court order to advance the egalitarian section followed by Knesset moves to strengthen Chief Rabbinate control over prayer at the site.
After recognizing the album’s significance, Freedman met with his family who decided collectively to give it to the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum for safekeeping, research and public access. Freedman said the family was proud the album had found “a new home, not many meters from where my grandfather once stood.”
Lev said he hoped the appeal would bring more discoveries like Freedman’s into public view, expanding the visual record of the Western Wall beyond official archives.
“There is something profoundly moving in the moment when an intimate private photograph transcends its original purpose and becomes an important historical testimony,” Lev said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post A century-old Jerusalem photo album sparks search for forgotten images of the Western Wall appeared first on The Forward.
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5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances
(JTA) — Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service announced Tuesday that an 18-year-old man has been charged in connection with the March arson attack that destroyed four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish volunteer emergency service.
Subhan Ahmed, a British national, was charged on Monday with “assisting an offender” in connection with the arson.
The ambulances were set ablaze in the early morning of March 23 in Golders Green, a heavily Jewish neighborhood in London. The incident spurred increased patrols in Jewish communities.
The charge is the latest development in an investigation being led by the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit.
Four others have already been charged in connection with the attack.
Three British nationals — 20-year-old Hamza Iqbal, 19-year-old Rehan Khan and 18-year-old Judex Atshatshi — along with a 17-year-old dual British and Pakistani national were all charged in April with “committing arson, destroying or damaging property, and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered.”
The four have remained in custody ahead of a trial planned for January. Ahmed, meanwhile, was released ahead of a June 16 court date.
The ambulance arsons came at the early edge of a wave of incidents that have put London Jews on edge and induced the city’s police force to step up their presence in Jewish communities. The incidents have included multiple incendiary devices placed near synagogues as well as the stabbing in April of two Jewish men in Golders Green. The Metropolitan Police reported last week that antisemitic hate crimes in the capital rose 72% in May.
Following the announcement of Ahmed’s charge, the Community Security Trust, a Jewish organization, thanked the police and the Crown Prosecution Service “for their ongoing work investigating this attack and other arson incidents targeting the Jewish community.”
It added in a statement, “These are very serious allegations, and it is right that those responsible are being held accountable.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post 5th man charged in March arson of London’s Hatzola ambulances appeared first on The Forward.
