Recruitment flyers for controversial Jewish group spotted in Queens — Queens Daily Eagle

By Jacob Kaye

Flyers calling for recruits to join a far-right Jewish group once dubbed a terrorist organization by the FBI were recently spotted in Queens, plastered to a parking meter across the street from the office of the borough’s top cop.

Around 10 flyers advertising membership to the Jewish Defense League were stuck onto a parking meter on Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens, a couple hundred feet from the Queens district attorney’s office inside Queens Criminal Court and the Queens borough president’s office at Borough Hall.

One of the flyers claimed that the neighborhood, where a large number of Jewish residents live, was being “monitored” by the New York City chapter of the JDL, which was founded in the late 1960s by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who urged Jews to respond to real or perceived antisemitism with violence and who himself was convicted several times of terrorism-related crimes.

About a week after the signs were spotted by the Eagle, they had been mostly torn down or defaced. It’s unclear if the signs posted on the Queens Boulevard parking meter were the only JDL ads placed in the neighborhood.

The JDL was largely believed to have been dormant over the past two decades, but the ideology behind the group’s founding has reportedly seen a resurgence following the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“Fuck Gaza for their atrocities on October 7th and fuck you if you support them,” one of the signs found in Queens read. “Nazi scum[,] your time will come.”

A member of a JDL offshoot group, the JDL 613 Brotherhood, was arrested in March for plotting to firebomb the New York City home of prominent Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani. While JDL USA, the group purportedly advertising in Queens, has distanced itself from JDL 613, both groups consider themselves the rightful practitioners of Kahane’s teachings.

Na’amah Devine, an organizer for JDL USA based in Chicago, confirmed to the Eagle that the group looks for members in the five boroughs.

“[W]e have recruiting stickers all around New York City and other cities,” Devine said.

The JDL member declined to comment further on the organization, directing the Eagle instead to its website, where the JDL is described as “the most controversial and most effective Jewish group in American history.”

Devine said the group doesn’t “give out numbers” when asked by the Eagle about the number of JDL USA members in New York City, adding that the group was forced to “dismantle” its chapter system because of the actions of the JDL 613 Brotherhood.

Devine, who publicly condemned the alleged bomb plot orchestrated by JDL 613 Brotherhood member Alexander Heifler, told the New York Times that around 200 people are vetted members of JDL USA.

A pamphlet posted on JDL USA’s website says that the organization “unconditionally and unequivocally condemns all forms of terrorism” and that it is “an above-board, law-abiding organization.”

The JDL is no longer listed as a terror organization by the FBI.

Some local officials denounced the signs in the area of Queens home to a large Jewish population, while others downplayed their significance.

City Councilmember Lynn Schulman, who represents Kew Gardens in the city’s legislature, told the Eagle in a statement that she “does not tolerate hate of any kind.”

After being made aware of the flyers by the Eagle, Schulman’s office reported the signs to the NYPD and the Department of Transportation, which maintains the city’s parking meters.

The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards said that “those who perpetuate hate, violence and extremism will never have a home in The World’s Borough, where residents of all races and religions proudly live in harmony alongside one another.”

“To this far-right hate group and any other extremist looking to radicalize our neighbors, promote violence in our communities or place targets on entire ethnicities, Queens has two words for you — kick rocks,” he added. “You or your ideology will never be welcome in our borough or in our city.”

But not all officials were concerned about the flyers.

“I don’t think they are indicative of a larger movement,” said Assemblymember Sam Berger. “I wouldn’t say there is something growing here.”

Berger said he hadn’t seen any evidence in person or in online groups that the JDL’s presence was taking root in Queens.

He also questioned whether the signs were placed by actual members of the JDL.

“Anybody can take the name JDL,” he said, adding that the Democratic Socialists of America has distanced itself from some who have claimed to act on the organization’s behalf – unlike the JDL, the DSA has never been designated by the federal government as a terrorist group.

But while he believes the JDL’s presence is minuscule, Berger said he would “take it very seriously” should that presence grow.

“Whatever point you’re trying to make [should] not come across through acts of terrorism,” he said.

The Queens district attorney’s office declined to comment.

The JDL has a long history in Queens.

At the time of the group’s founding in 1968, Kahane was working as a rabbi at the Rochdale Village Traditional Synagogue in Queens.

It was from the World’s Borough that his far-right ideology spread.