Local letter condemns antisemitic incidents in capital

Twenty-three human rights and religious organizations have signed on to a strongly worded letter condemning alleged hate crimes in Boise and calling on people to become aware of the danger for such actions to metastasize.

The Latah County Human Rights Task Force recently circulated a letter calling on legislators, law enforcement officers and citizens to “speak up and take a united stand against hate.”

“People throughout Idaho and the Northwest find all forms of hate and prejudice repulsive and are alarmed by the increasingly blatant demonstrations of antisemitism occurring in Boise,” the letter states.

“We can only imagine how it must feel for people, especially Jewish residents, to find flyers on their doorsteps with disgusting caricatures of Jewish figures, describing the COVID pandemic as a Jewish plot, enclosed with pellet gun ammunition.”

Joann Muneta, of Moscow, chairwoman of the task force, said Monday her members were appalled after reading about a recent spree of antisemitic crimes in Boise that included two incidents of antisemitic graffiti, as well as antisemitic flyers spread throughout one northern Boise neighborhood.

Muneta, who was a charter member of the Latah County Human Rights Task Force in the late 1980s when the white supremacist Aryan Nations got a foothold in northern Idaho, said after hearing of the recent hate crimes “it was deja vu all over again.”

“It’s a worry that people don’t take it seriously enough because they don’t realize how things can escalate,” Muneta said. She recalled that residents in northern Idaho did not at first take seriously the threat posed by the Aryan Nations “until they started throwing bombs and robbing banks.”

In November, antisemitic flyers accusing the Jewish community of being behind COVID-19 were distributed in the north end of Boise and other locations across the United States.

The flyers were distributed in Ziploc bags weighed down with ammunition for pellet guns.

This followed an incident in June when antisemitic slogans and swastikas were spray-painted on doorsteps, fences, sidewalks and tunnels leading to the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial in Boise and last year’s vandalism of Spokane’s Temple Beth Shalom.

“Can this really be happening in our supposedly law-abiding state in these supposedly enlightened times?” the task force letter reads. “Wake up Idaho! The roots of hate, when allowed to spread, hurt not just the Jews, but all minorities, and eventually all of society.”

An attempt to contact the Boise Police Department on Monday for comment on the incidents was not successful.

No arrests have been made, but Boise Police Chief Ryan Lee recently told the Idaho Statesman he can’t speak to the progress in the investigation and whether these incidents may have been linked to one another or to similar incidents in other parts of the country.

Idaho State Police’s recent annual crime report showed four anti-Jewish hate crimes were reported in the state in 2020, the most recent data available. That’s the highest number of antisemitic crimes reported since 2004 and 2005, which each saw four anti-Jewish crimes.

Muneta said the Latah County task force’s letter has spread through word-of-mouth and organizations throughout Idaho and Montana have signed on. The plan is to send the letter to local legislators, Idaho’s congressional delegation and the governor.

The task force put on the annual Martin Luther King human rights breakfast in a virtual format Saturday morning. Muneta said it was then a shock to turn on the news and hear about a hostage situation at a synagogue in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That episode ended with the four hostages being released and the suspect dead, according to news accounts.

“So there were a lot of other questions we have,” Muneta said of the task force’s response. “We think we’re going to look into having group discussions to revive the (North Idaho Coalition for Human Rights).”

Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@lmtribune.com.