GDL activists displaying antisemitic banners at the Daytona500 speedway race in Florida. Photo: Daytona Beach Police Dept.

Police in Florida are investigating the spread of antisemitic propaganda in Daytona Beach after antisemitic activists displayed banners denouncing Jews at the annual Daytona 500 speedway race over the weekend.

A handful of supporters of the so-called “Goyim Defense League” (GDL) gathered on a pedestrian bridge leading to the event on Sunday holding up banners reading “Communism is Jewish” and “Henry Ford Was Right About The Jews.” The founder of the Ford motor company was one of the most notorious antisemites in the US during the twentieth century, whose book, “The International Jew,” was widely distributed at the time.

The outburst of hatred came just days after two Orthodox Jews were allegedly shot outside a synagogue in Los Angeles last week by a GDL activist who was expelled from dental school for distributing the group’s propaganda. According to a complaint filed by federal prosecutors, Jaime Tran, 28, allegedly called Jews “primitive” and is reported to have texted a former classmate with the messages, “Someone is going to kill you, Jew,” and “I want you dead, Jew.”

Daytona Beach Police Chief Jakari Young dubbed the GDL demonstrators as “First Amendment auditors” whose goal was to bait police into violating their free speech rights in order to launch a lawsuit.

“The Daytona Beach Police Department remained and will continue to remain professional through their encounters with them while they exercised their first amendment rights,” he said.

Young added that “We stand in solidarity with the Jewish community and all those who are affected by hate and discrimination, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that Daytona Beach remains an inclusive destination for all.”

Responding to the provocation, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) observed that the GDL “is a network of rabidly antisemitic provocateurs led by Jon Minadeo who recently relocated to Florida from California.”

The ADL noted that the GDL’s “overarching goal is to expel Jews from America. To that end, they cast aspersions on Jews and spread antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories in hopes of turning Americans against the Jewish people.”

A failed actor and rapper, Minadeo has already made himself known to the police department in Palm Beach, Florida, where he recently moved from his original base in northern California. Earlier this month, Minadeo and three of his acolytes were apprehended tossing weighted baggies containing propaganda sheets targeting Jews, with the result that each man was fined $163 for littering from a vehicle.

Reporting on Minadeo’s detention, the Palm Beach Post described him as a “well-known antisemitic agitator from Sonoma County, Calif., who boasted on social media last year that he had been handcuffed and arrested for ‘hate speech’ outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.”