Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023 | 1 p.m.
Boulder City resident Fred DiManno was walking his dog early Tuesday on Colorado Avenue near Nevada Way when he encountered something so disturbing on the sidewalk that he was outraged.
He noticed zip-closed bags on the ground filled with rice and folded pieces of paper. He opened the bags to find antisemitic literature promoting an online video sharing platform dedicated to Jewish hate.
The literature detailed Jewish ownership in major media conglomerates, including The Walt Disney Co., claiming that “every single aspect of Disney child grooming is Jewish” with a warning in red letters to “protect your children.”
DiManno immediately contacted Boulder City Police.
“This is not the way I live,” said DiManno, who has mostly resided in town since the early 1980s. “I know there is hatred out there and people have different ideas than I do, but this is wrong. This is not the path to go down. It doesn’t solve any problems; it creates division.”
It’s unknown if someone who lives in Boulder City, a town of 15,000 residents near the Hoover Dam, is responsible for the literature. It’s also unknown how many bags were left around the city and how many were opened.
DiManno and a friend who walk their dogs together each morning found about a dozen bags, he said. A few were given to law enforcement and the others thrown away.
The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism labeled the literature as an antisemitic incident, said Morgan Moon, an investigative researcher with the group who reviewed the flyers. The Sun isn’t naming the website the flyers advertise or the group behind it.
Moon said the flyers encourage people to download other forms of antisemitic literature. The ADL’s Center for Extremism received 370 complaints last year about information being printed out from the hate group’s website and distributed, she said. That was up significantly from the 80 incidents reported to the ADL in 2021.
“They are trying to spread age-old myths (about the Jewish community), not only to recruit but to intimidate,” Moon said.
Mayor Joe Hardy, who has called Boulder City home for 40 years, says the literature goes against the core values of the town that welcomes many international tourists annually as they visit the dam. He stresses the Boulder City he knows embraces people from different backgrounds dating to when the dam was built in the 1930s during the Great Depression.
“I am hopeful the core group of people in this community will find this reprehensible and will say, ‘This is not who we are. This is not us in Boulder City,’” said Hardy, the first-term mayor.
DiManno’s anger intensified when he visited the website advertised on the flyers. He was also outraged at a disclaimer at the bottom of the flyers saying, “These flyers were distributed randomly without malicious intent.”
“That left us shaking our head,” he said. “How could they say this isn’t about hate? It’s only about hate.”
In the ADL’s annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, the group found 2,717 antisemitic incidents nationally in 2021 to mark a 34% increase from 2020. More disturbing, that was the highest number on record since the group started tracking incidents in 1979. The 2022 report hasn’t been published.
While it’s vile and disgusting, what occurred in Boulder City isn’t a crime, Moon said, noting the flyers are protected speech under the First Amendment. The goal of the white supremacists behind the flyers is to get as many people to visit their site, and even to get the group’s names published in the media as a form of free advertising to spread the message of hate, Moon said.
“This is the blueprint for all of their propaganda,” she said.
That blueprint has previously backfired, she said.
Members of the group in 2021 targeted Austin, Texas, with literature, signs and even some supremacists yelling slurs at members of the Jewish community outside of a synagogue, she said. One group displayed a banner targeting Jewish people on the overpass of a highway. Moon said similar actions took place in other Texas cities.
The incidents turned into a rallying point for those communities, where residents turned out in droves to support their Jewish neighbors and condemn the hate. It made the communities stronger, Moon said.
That’s the hope Mayor Hardy has in Boulder City.
“This gives us an opportunity to look at ourselves,” Hardy said. “I am portraying these feelings to some other group. Then, for lack of a better word, there’s a need to repent and change.”
And he stresses, “When you come to Boulder City, know that we love everyone.”
