Reports of anti-Semitic flyers in Georgia county called a misunderstanding

(JTA) — Reports that flyers described by police in Georgia as anti-Semitic were the product of a misunderstanding, local media is reporting.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported late Tuesday night that while one anti-Muslim flyer had been placed on a car in the largely Jewish Toco Hills neighborhood of DeKalb County earlier this month, reports that anti-Semitic flyers had been discovered were erroneous.

The newspaper reported that Dov Wilker, the Atlanta regional director of the American Jewish Committee, said the misunderstanding stemmed from a “historical document” bearing swastikas and anti-Semitic language that a local resident was using to study the history of anti-Semitism.

In a statement published Tuesday evening on the website of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Wilker said: “Upon further investigation we have determined conclusively that the offensive anti-Semitic flyer with swastikas and Holocaust denial language is a historical document, which was being used by a member of the Jewish community who was studying the history of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Another member of the Jewish community saw the document and mistakenly sent it on to others thinking it was linked to the distribution of the anti-Muslim flyer (determined to be a legitimate Islamophobic incident), upon which the story regrettably took on a life of its own.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency had reported earlier Tuesday on local reports on the flyer scare.

The anti-Muslim flyer had been placed on the car of a Jewish resident of Toco Hills, Wilker told the Journal-Constitution.