People protest against excessive quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic at the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Michigan on April 15, 2020. Image by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust imagery continue to be mainstays at anti-lockdown protests against governors and in state capitols.

A placard at an anti-lockdown protest held Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, in front of the state capitol bore the image of the body of a rat standing on its hind legs with a Star of David on its back, with the head of a Jewish man but a long pointed nose, rubbing his hands together. The sign reads “The Real Plague.”

This lady is yelling toward the Tennessee Capitol at @GovBillLee, trying to compare the coronavirus shutdown to the Holocaust.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“80 years ago Jews didn’t have a chance. We f—ing do,” she shouts. pic.twitter.com/VEHoukbKyJ

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) April 20, 2020

A photo of the sign being held out of the window of a minivan driving near the downtown Columbus protest, taken by Cleveland.com reporter Laura Hancock, was retweeted hundreds of time. A second photo tweeted by Democratic Ohio State Rep. Casey Weinstein, who is Jewish, showed two men holding the sign outside of their vehicle.

“There are symbols of hatred mixed in,” he told Cleveland.com. “I think it’s important to call that out. I’m not going to let that pass. I’m not. There are people out there exercising their rights. By no means am I saying they’re all anti-Semitic, they’re all racists, but there is an element there.”

In Idaho, Republican state Rep. Heather Scott called Republican Gov. Brad Little “little Hitler” and compared his shutdown orders to Nazi Germany during a podcast interview Thursday, the Spokesman-Review reported.

“I mean, that’s no different than Nazi Germany, where you had government telling people, ‘You are an essential worker or a nonessential worker,’ and the nonessential workers got put on a train,” Scott said during the interview with “The Jess Fields Show” that was posted online.

Scott defended her use of Holocaust analogies in a post on Facebook.

“My videos and interviews are generating a lot of positive responses and people are waking up. My recent analogies are poignant and relative to our times.,” she wrote. “While human lives are certainly more valuable than a business, we cannot underestimate nor ignore that our businesses are the life blood of the citizens who own them, the communities they are in and to the customers they serve. Losing the former destroys the latter.”

Also last week, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis became emotional during a news briefing about the coronavirus crisis in his state when a reporter said that the public has compared his stay-at-home order to Nazism, and chants comparing Michigan’s governor to Hitler were among those heard at a protest of the state’s stay-at-home order by thousands of demonstrators.

The post Anti-lockdown protests spawn more anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust imagery appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount