Because God knows haters gonna hate, the sorry likes of neo-Nazis and The Goyim Defense League declared Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, a National Day of Hate, per orders to, “Shock the masses with banner drops, stickers, fliers, and graffiti.” Instead, law enforcement and faith leaders prepped to confront brown-shirted storm-troopers improbably met only with glad defiant crowds proclaiming “Love Not Hate,” “A Day of Resolve,” “We Are Here.” So okay. Maybe there’s a sliver of hope for us.

News of the planned “Day of Hate” reportedly came from a tiny neo-Nazi group in Iowa, which distributed pep-talks and flyers online to white-supremacist fan-boys like the National Socialist Movement and the guys with the hilarious goyim name urging them to target Jews on their day of rest to mark the last Saturday of Black History Month, because, c’mon, Jews and blacks, pretty much the same, right? In America in the year 2023, with one major political party daily preaching hate, fear, bigotry and wariness of the “other,” any other at all, this is unsurprising, if deeply distressing.

Still, if you’re wondering how we got here, look no further than the malignant cretins at Fox News, who it turns out ran at least one racist, hate-spewing piece of toxic drivel every day of Black History Month—from Tucker ranting about “white genocide” to Roseanne Barr explaining “white racism” means “Jewish control” to Mark Levin whining about a “top-down woke revolution” in the military tragically hunting down “supposed white rage and white supremacy in the ranks.”

With anti-Semitic harassment and violence at an all-time high—and news of the latest ugly idiocy by “domestic terrorists who need a Day of Hate to make sure everyone knows what losers they are”—police in cities across the country went on high alert. The NYPD issued a “situational awareness alert,” and announced plans to increase patrols synagogues “out of an abundance of caution,” as did police in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Chicago and Florida. Jewish groups likewise issued warnings: “To my fellow Jews, be vigilant. To our non-Jewish allies, please stand with us.”

As Saturday dawned, many stalwart Jews also took action against what they righteously dismissed as “Nazi propaganda.” In New York, some declared they were “praying for peace”; joyful crowds turned up in Jewish areas, bearing rainbow umbrellas, to celebrate diversity and proclaim a “Shabbat of Peace Not Hate”; and an East Side synagogue hosted an outdoor Shabbat service to declare a “Day of Resolve” to say “We’re not intimidated” and, “We are here.”

Oddly, they were the only ones. Unless Google has been taken over by George Soros like everything else and is covering up all the brave, Fox-watching, AR-15-owning bigots who flooded America’s streets on their own special day of hate, there was virtually no news or sighting of a single patriot crawling out of their moms’ basements to “shock the masses with banner drops, stickers, fliers, and graffiti” or otherwise terrorize Jews. Like, nada. Missing in odious action. Which, to be clear, is not to say the haters have all retreated shame-faced into their caves; just that, this time, they were either just trolling, or scared of encountering cops and/or Jews who outnumbered them.

For proof of their fetid, lingering presence, see recent events in Florida, our latest breeding ground of fascism—more soon on their own little Benito—where Jon Minadeo, the pathetic, self-described “most famous anti-Semite in America on the Internet,” has been busy hanging banners that read “End Jewish Supremacy in America” and “Honk if you know it’s the Jews,” raving about “the synagogue of Satan,” and yes, terrorizing Jews.

Originally from California, Minadeo newly moved his neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League to Florida to be closer to his fascist homies and, presumably, one of the country’s largest Jewish populations; he often floods neighborhoods with anti-Semitic flyers, spews his vitriol on a GoyimTV.com website, and uploads those videos to right-wing hate sites. Despite our vaunted First Amendment, which pretty much protects even the most vile hate speech as free speech, Minadeo was recently arrested in Palm Beach with three other men on a propaganda-puking run—for littering—as they threw weighted baggies holding the flyers from a car. Each man was fined $163 for littering—a non-criminal infraction that’s not even a misdemeanor—because, noted one frustrated Jewish resident, “Ignorance and hatred are not a crime. Littering and trespassing are.” Inexplicably not deterred by his $163 fine, Minadeo was back at it last week, screaming anti-Semitic obscenities at an Orthodox Chabad in Orlando as cops sat nearby in their patrol cars (see “free speech”).

Video shows Minadeo in a flowered romper (WTF?), fellow-thugs around him, bellowing into a megaphone at Rabbi Yosef Konikov as he tries to drive out past them: “Hey, horse-faced Jew, go back to Israel…Filthy Jew, we see you…Lookit this neurotic rabbi trying to run us over, fucking Jew… What are you, the kike police? Heil Hitler, you fucking faggot…”

Observers were appalled; some mused about Florida’s infamous “stand your ground” law used to murder Trayvon Martin. Later, the remarkably placid rabbi derided the anti-Semitic mob as “meshuga’im,” Yiddish for crazy, before thanking them for prompting an outpouring of support. “What they’re accomplishing is the opposite of what they think they’re accomplishing,” he said. “It only strengthens us…If they’re listening, thanks.”

Still, even Minadeo et al, didn’t show for their own nasty little Day of Hate—which was, unbeknownst to them, also the birthday of Henri Dresner. A French Jew born on Feb. 25, 1932, Henri was among 794 people murdered in August 1942 in a gas chamber at Auschwitz with the rest of his family. He was ten.

Henry Dresner, a French Jew, was born Feb. 25, 1932. He arrived at #Auschwitz August 9, 1942 in a transport of 1,069 Jews, and was among 794 murdered in a gas chamber after selection.Photo from Auschwitz Museum

Republished with permission from Common Dreams, by Abby Zimet