Lincoln Park vehicles targeted by antisemitic flyers with outlandish claims about Jews

CHICAGO (WLS) -- At least 50 vehicles in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood with a significant Jewish population, were targeted by antisemitic flyers.

The incident is being investigated by Chicago police as a hate incident, but not a hate crime, because there is no specific person that was victimized. But residents who woke up to find the flyers on their car said they feel very much like targets.

"I saw on my dashboard a piece of paper with an antisemitic, very antisemitic markings on it that said that Jews own the media, the Jews started COVID," said resident Aaron Snyder.

Snyder's was one of at least 50 vehicle targeted along a three block stretch of Magnolia Street in Lincoln Park. Second Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins was called out to witness the incident himself.

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The community voiced their frustrations during the annual Sheffield Neighborhood Association meeting Tuesday.

"There's anger. There's also a lot of sadness because that hate is not welcome in this city, and it's certainly not welcome in our neighborhood," Brian Comer president of the Sheffield Neighborhood Association said.

"I met the police commander this morning he documented the entirety of the incident so there is an investigation," Hopkins said. "We are convinced that this was a targeted effort to purposely select and area where Jewish residents lived to try to make them uncomfortable and frighten them."

This is the second time in less than a week this has happened in Lincoln Park. On January 31, residents on Bissel between Armitage and Belden made a similar discovery.

"We believe it's the same group that's responsible for it," Hopkins said. "It's clearly more than one person because there's a significant number of these that are deployed at the same time."

ABC7 has blurred the antisemitic messages inscribed on the cards, which include outlandish and inflammatory accusations.

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"We need to do better at holding people accountable. This city needs to take a stand and say we can't let this happen. Actually get to the bottom of this," said Rabbi Mendy Benhiyoun of Chabad of Lincoln Park.

While Snyder got to meet with Ald. Hopkins on Tuesday afternoon to hand over the flyers he collected and to discuss the issue, he admitted to feeling unnerved by the incident and by what he perceives to be a rise in antisemitism across Chicago in light of the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

"It's seems like there won't be much of a public outcry over this little incident but there's been many little incidents in Chicago and if you add them all up it shows a pattern I think," he said.

Hopkins is asking residents to look at their Ring cameras and turn over any video that may help them identify the perpetrators of this antisemitic activity.