20 | JUNE 1 • 2023
N
ovi law enforcement
officials are investi-
gating the appearance
of antisemitic flyers that were
strewn from a passing car and
found on various driveways
along Meadowbrook Road
Sunday morning, May 21.
The flyers accuse Jews of
being responsible for occupying
high positions of power at the
Disney Corporation to groom
children for pedophilia, that
the ADL was formed to protect
Jewish pedophiles and there-
fore is not qualified to monitor
online hate speech, and that
Jewish people have a large
role in promoting the LGBTQ
movement. Identical flyers
have been appearing for years
in cities across the country,
most recently in the suburbs of
Atlanta.
According to Novi
Police Commander
Jason Meier, in the
overnight hours of
Saturday to Sunday,
a car drove along
Meadowbrook Road
in Novi and threw
about a half dozen
such pamphlets ran-
domly into resident driveways
in the Village Oaks neighbor-
hood. Meier said it does not
appear that Jewish homes were
targeted. The car and driver
have not been identified.
Meier said the flyers could be
easily downloaded and printed
from the hate group’s website
gtvflyers.com. Meier said the
police will still investigate but
have no leads at this point.
Novi resident Jeff Lewis,
51, was about to head out to
Flower Days at the Eastern
Market in Detroit on Sunday
morning when he noticed a
strange Ziploc bag filled with
the flyers weighed down with
corn in his driveway. Fearful
that someone had thrown
drugs out a window, or the bag
could be containing toxic sub-
stances, he approached the bag
wearing disposable gloves.
“Inside there were four
pages, front and back,
” said
Lewis, who graduated from
West Bloomfield High School.
“It is vile and laughably wrong.
One of the blessings I consider
in my life was growing up with
Jewish friends in West
Bloomfield who I
consider family. [State
Attorney General]
Dana Nessel was two
grades behind me.
I got to understand
Judaism and Jewish
people and what
Judaism is and what
it is not. And this is
why, though I am not Jewish,
this flyer offended me to my
core.
”
At first glance, Lewis thought
it was odd to see the logo of
the ADL on a flyer in the plas-
tic bag and knew this was not
“normal” information or an ask
for a donation from the organi-
zation, but
a printed piece of propaganda.
Fearing that the packet had
been laced with poison, he han-
dled the flyer wearing gloves.
One flyer alleges that the
ADL was created back in 1913
to protect Leo Frank from
pedophilia and murder charges.
In the most notorious example
of antisemitism in American
history, Frank, who managed a
factory in Atlanta, was accused
of the 1913 rape and murder of
a teen girl who was the daugh-
ter of migrant farm workers
and worked at the factory. He
was falsely accused and con-
victed of the crimes in a trial
full of antisemitic tropes.
In 1915, after multiple
attempts and failures to appeal
Frank’s case all the way up to
the Supreme Court, the gover-
nor of Georgia changed Frank’s
sentence from capital punish-
ment to life in prison. Enraged
by the decision, a mob then
broke into the prison where
he was being held, removed
him from his cell and lynched
him. Frank’s story is the basis
of the 1988 musical Parade,
which is currently running on
Broadway.
Lewis, who said he loves
the diverse nature of his Novi
neighborhood, said he took
action to report the flyer not
only to local law enforce-
ment but to the ADL, the
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
Police say Lewis was the only
resident to file a report with the
police about the flyers. The JN
reached out to several Jewish
families in Novi, who had no
other knowledge of the incident
outside of a brief report that
was filed May 22 on WDIV-TV
.
“The only way that this level
of hatred can be overcome is
if we expose it,
” Lewis said. “I
don’t want that hatred in my
community. I want them to
feel uncomfortable about ever
thinking about doing some-
thing like this again. I want the
police looking for that person.
I don’t want them to get away
with it.
”
ADL Michigan Regional
Director Carolyn Normandin
commended Lewis’ actions and
said he did just the right thing.
Collecting data on organiza-
tions like this, Normandin said,
is the way to stop them “with a
thousand tiny cuts.
”
“In 2022, this organization
was reported to have commit-
ted over 450 incidents, and
these flyers have appeared in 42
states,
” Normandin said. “This
group’s main cause is to bring
hatred upon Jews. They are vile
propagandists and their cam-
paigns target Jews from every-
thing from the COVID pan-
demic to pedophilia. They exist
for one reason — to spread lies
and myths about Jews. These
flyers — and the main intention
of them — is to spread hate and
discord against Jews.
“The most important thing
people can do when they
encounter this propaganda is
to first call the police and then
contact the ADL.
”
A Vile Driveway
Surprise
OUR COMMUNITY
Novi man finds antisemitic flyer
and decides to take action.
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Jeff
Lewis