YORBA LINDA : Anti-Semitic Flyers Condemned

Church leaders on Monday condemned the distribution of hundreds of anti-Semitic flyers near a Yorba Linda synagogue and church over the weekend.

The flyers were found Sunday morning littering a neighborhood surrounding the Chabad Center of North County, an Orthodox synagogue, and the United Methodist Church. Police and church officials said Monday that the flyers were “falsely and fraudulently” attributed to the “Methodist fellowship.”

“They were probably seeking credibility,” Brea Police Lt. Tom Christian said in speculating on the attribution. “They were probably trying to give somebody reason to think that they should read it.”

Following a meeting Monday at the Chabad Center, church and synagogue officials condemned the flyers, which said, “Kill Every Jew.”

Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Chabad Center said he believed that the flyers are “an isolated incident,” adding that they were probably distributed by pranksters who do not live in Yorba Linda.

“Yorba Linda is the land of gracious living,” Eliezrie said. “It is easy to come from outside a community to create tensions that don’t exist. We have received numerous calls from our Gentile neighbors who talk about how upset they were about receiving the flyers.”

The Rev. Kenneth Criswell, pastor of United Methodist Church, called the flyers “terrible and cruel.”

“We’re very honored to have the (North County Chabad Center) as neighbors . . . and we are going to work to be good neighbors for a long time to come,” he said.