DANVILLE — Under the cover of darkness, the Iron Horse Trail is an easy place to post anonymous, antisemitic flyers. In daylight, the well-traveled rail trail provides a bevy of eyeballs for the hateful messages that have been cropping up in the Bay Area.
But the high traffic in places like the Iron Horse Trail, which runs more than 30 miles between Concord and Pleasanton, may also speed up the removal of such flyers. That’s exactly what Tom Maneloveg did last weekend when he spotted a colorful paper pinned to a pole while on one of his frequent early morning walks with a friend along the trail.
“You couldn’t miss it — the moment I saw what it was, I pulled it down and showed my buddy,” Maneloveg said. “I’m Jewish, so I was somewhat taken aback and offended by it. … That (flyer) was the only one we came across, but we’ve been speculating as to whether there were more. Maybe other people already on the trail took them down.”
His experience on the path near Del Amigo Swim Club and San Ramon Valley High School matched stories he’d heard about antisemitic flyers put up around the state. Just this past week, flyers were distributed all across California — including Amador, Marin, Calaveras and San Diego counties. Additional notes have been left in Novato, Concord, Berkeley, Palo Alto and other cities in recent months.
The proliferation of flyers is no surprise to the 45,000 residents of Danville, where the Iron Horse Trail has repeatedly been a target of handbills spewing conspiracies since the start of the pandemic.
Frustrated that this piece of paper was likely protected under the First Amendment’s freedom of speech, Maneloveg opted to share his experience with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization, rather than contact local police and file a report. (Notably, the bottom of the flyer included a line saying, “These flyers were distributed randomly without malicious intent.”)
But beyond reporting to the League, he said he hoped to inform others that this kind of hateful rhetoric is still being spread near a town that is fairly conservative and “well to do” compared to the rest of the region.
“I’ve always joked and said Danville is very diverse, because it’s got Republicans and Democrats, unlike the rest of the Bay Area,” Maneloveg said. “Danville does have an undercurrent of racism and antisemitism. Unfortunately, people think the Bay Area’s so liberal, but we certainly have our pockets of hate here, too.”
Teresa Drenick, the Anti-Defamation League’s deputy regional director for the central Pacific region, said these seemingly coordinated incidents are all about shattering a community’s sense of safety and peace, regardless of an area’s Jewish population.
“The people who are doing this are trying to have maximum effect in the places they target,” Drenick said. “We immediately work with the community — from the individuals who report to us to the mayor or city council — to ensure that people know what’s happening. We also communicate with law enforcement, because sometimes they’ll be able to connect dots between one seemingly legal action that may provide clues or evidence to a larger investigation.”
This recent wave of flyers comes as hateful incidents as a whole are on the rise.
In 2021, anti-Jewish hate crimes reached an all-time high — both nationally and across California — for the 42 years that the ADL began collecting data. Such crimes rose again last year, setting a new record.
While there aren’t clear-cut answers for quelling hateful rhetoric without censoring freedom of speech, Drenick said it’s vital that people continue logging incidents of hate speech to organizations like hers. She said the ADL uses that data, which is publicly tracked on a “heat map” of incidents of hate, extremism, antisemitism and terrorism, as a tool to help local and national leaders craft legislation and provide funding to improve safety and security for places of worship, nonprofits and communities across the U.S.
Town spokesperson Jenn Starnes confirmed Danville police have responded to reports of similar flyers before, but recent records not include any incidents this past weekend.
“The town of Danville condemns hate speech in all forms,” Starnes said in a statement. “While we are disappointed that a flyer has been found, we know our community at large stands against this attempt at disrupting inclusivity in Danville.”
Most recently, officers responded to a July 13 report that a flyer with antisemitic messages was found along the Iron Horse Trail, located between Paraiso Drive and Sycamore Valley Road. Starnes said officers did not find any additional flyers in the area.
While the trail is technically under the jurisdiction of the East Bay Regional Parks District’s Police Department, Capt. Al Elzey Jr. said he had not heard about the flyers before being asked about them.
This lack of clear data and communication is exactly why nonprofits like the ADL are so adamant about publicizing antisemitic incidents.
“Without that knowledge, we lack accurate data, and the data really drives progress,” Drenick said. “The more that it is known, the stronger the fight can be to combat hate and hopefully eliminate it.”