Anti-Semitic Flyers Hit Santa Barbara’s Mesa on First Day of Hanukkah

Drive-By Drops Part of ‘Orchestrated Campaign,’ Says Local Anti-Defamation League Leader

Dan Meisel, regional director of the Santa Barbara Regional Anti-Defamation League, said the flyers are from a small, nationally based anti-Semitic fringe group that’s grown increasingly active in the past two years. | Credit: Gail Arnold (file)

Many residents of Santa Barbara’s Mesa neighborhood woke on Sunday morning — the first day of Hanukkah — to find one of several virulently anti-Semitic flyers in their driveway. City Councilmember Michael Jordan — who represents the Mesa on the council — estimated that “hundreds” of homes had been visited by drive-by delivery squads.

Among the many things the flyers blamed Jews for was the COVID pandemic. They also brought up the lynching of Leo Frank — a Jew — in 1915, after his death sentence had been commuted for the crime of murdering a 13-year-old boy in the state of Georgia. Frank would be exonerated of those charges 70 years after his murder.

The flyers came wrapped in plastic bags, which contained rice or beans — and, according to some reports, rocks — to make the flyers easier to toss and to prevent them from blowing away. The flyers were found on driveways and sidewalks in front of homes on the West Mesa, on a street behind Mesa Produce, on Flora Vista and West Valerio streets, on Shoreline Drive, on the Westside, and as far away as Hidden Valley.