Neo-Nazis urge armed march to harass Montana Jews

White supremacists plan event in Whitefish, hometown of alt-right leader Richard Spencer

Rabbi Francine Green Roston, a member of Love Lives Here, a local anti-discrimination group, moved to Whitefish, Mont., with her family from New Jersey in 2014. (Uriel Heilman/JTA)
Rabbi Francine Green Roston, a member of Love Lives Here, a local anti-discrimination group, moved to Whitefish, Mont., with her family from New Jersey in 2014. (Uriel Heilman/JTA)

The man who runs the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer has announced an armed march by white supremacists in an effort to harass a Montana Jewish community.

The web graphic published Friday announcing the march in Whitefish, Montana, is published over a picture of the entrance to Auschwitz and includes a yellow Star of David with the word “Jude” printed in it.

Whitefish is home to white supremacist leader Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist think tank. Last month, he spoke at a white supremacist event in Washington, DC, celebrating President-elect Donald Trump’s victory. At the event, Spencer said “Hail Trump!” and was greeted by Nazi salutes.

The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist publication, published a blog post earlier in the month calling for followers to “take action” against Jews in Whitefish by writing and calling them with anti-Semitic messages. The post claimed that Jewish residents were “threatening” Spencer’s mother’s business in the town.

The post included the names, phone numbers and addresses of Jewish Whitefish residents — in addition to the Twitter handle and photo of a child. The post also included photos of Jewish residents of Whitefish emblazoned with yellow stars. Along with using a number of anti-Semitic slurs, the post warned readers against using “violence or threats of violence or anything close to that.”

A local rabbi last week encouraged people to send notes of sympathy to the Jewish harassment victims in Whitefish and asked people to put a menorah in their window to show solidarity with the Jews of Whitefish, the ADL said in a statement issued on Friday.

In response, Anglin told his followers to put Nazi flags in their windows and to put Nazi swastikas on their cars, homes and businesses, he also called on his followers to send hateful messages to two anti-hate organizations targeted by Anglin’s campaign, according to the ADL.

The local government of Whitefish, which has 6,000 full-time residents, has rejected Spencer’s ideas.

“Not only is Anglin harassing the Jewish community of Whitefish, he is at the same time exploiting the situation there to promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control. He alleges that Jews have targeted white supremacists and anti-Semites but now he is somehow turning the tables on them,” the ADL said.

The ADL said it has been in regular contact with the Whitefish Jews singled out by Anglin as well as law enforcement.

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