Five families left about 600 Happy Rosh Hashanah fliers on cars at a BART station in response to anti-Semitic fliers left two days earlier at the same station.
On the afternoon of Sept. 30, Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a 37-year-old lawyer from Orinda, brought her kids to the BART station parking lot in Lafayette, along with four other families — not all of whom are Jewish.
“We brought our kids to BART after school on Friday, because they were the ones that wanted to do the actual fliering,” Bauer-Kahan said in a phone interview.
The Rosh Hashanah fliers were disseminated in response to anti-Semitic fliers that had been discovered at that same parking lot earlier in the week. The original fliers called the Jewish community “serpents” and said Jews were “baby killers.” A man wearing a Santa hat reportedly was seen leaving them on cars. They were believed to have been printed and distributed by a local man who runs an anti-Semitic blog that targets members of the Jewish community in Lafayette, according to local news sources.
“I read about the anti-Semitic fliers online and it made me sad, that people were talking about his hateful messages,” said Bauer-Kahan. “And I thought that this one man shouldn’t have the only voice in this conversation. So we responded with positivity — with fliers that show that we are part of a loving community.” — j. staff & jta