Jewish Federation of Cincinnati

Ari (Ballaban) Jun — In Conversation

Recently, the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati’s Jewish Community Relations Council learned that—on September 5—the West Chester Tea Party hosted a speaker who disseminated numerous extreme antisemitic conspiracy theories. The West Chester Tea Party subsequently repeated many of these ideas in an email sent to their membership on September 9.

Since this came to our attention, we have discovered that the West Chester Tea Party has a long history of sharing vitriolic antisemitic rhetoric through its Facebook page and Gab account. A non-exhaustive list of conspiracy theories propagated by the group include that Jews: control the media, finance, and politicians; manipulate African Americans; are imposters who have replaced the “real Jews”; engage in child sacrifice; and are disloyal to the United States.

We are keenly aware of how antisemitism is on the rise in our country. The normalization of antisemitism by an active, local political organization makes this worse and is absolutely unacceptable.

We are grateful for the Republican elected officials who have voiced their support to the Jewish community, making clear that they do not condone this group’s behavior. Likewise, given that this speaker was hosted at St. Gertrude the Great Catholic Church, we thank the Archdiocese of Cincinnati for helping us confirm that the church that hosted this event is not formally affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church. The Archdiocese has affirmed that they would not allow such behavior within one of their facilities. The Cincinnati Jewish community is lucky to have leaders in the Republican and Catholic communities who will stand up to hate such as this, which is purportedly committed in their names.

Until such a time as the West Chester Tea Party has not just deleted this material, but demonstrates a commitment to opposing antisemitism, we call on those who consider themselves allies to the Jewish community not to seek their endorsement, appear at their programs, or work with them. Doing anything less normalizes this behavior and makes our community less safe.