NJ Proud Boys Throw a Little Anti-Semitic Shade at Jon Stewart

This is the chapter of the Proud Boys who went to a Woodbridge, NJ Town Council last month – even though they were apparently not even from there – and cried about being treated badly. They ain’t seen nothing yet!

When a Proud Boy chapter based traveled to Woodbridge, NJ to address the Town Council meeting there last month one of them solely identified as “Bert” read a statement indicating that they were simply “men in this community with children in the school system” that were also “tired of being accused of White supremacy and racism”. The chapter however has a Telegram account that not only indicates they are from South Jersey, but has recently made an anti-Semitic post regarding comedian Jon Stewart’s concerns over anti-Semitic imagery in a Harry Potter character.

Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show, who is Jewish, noted on the Dec. 16 episode of his podcast The Problem with Jon Stewart that author J.K. Rowling’s goblins that run the Gringotts bank were similar to caricatures of Jews from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an infamous anti-Semitic text that purports to show a Jewish plan for world domination. “Here’s how you know Jews are still where they are,” he said. “I just want to show you a caricature. And they’re like, ‘Oh, look at that, that’s from Harry Potter!’ And you’re like, ‘No, that’s a caricature of a Jew from an anti-Semitic piece of literature.’ J.K. Rowling was like, ‘Can we get these guys to run our bank?’

“It was one of those things where I saw it on the screen and I was expecting the crowd to be like ‘holy shit, she did not in a wizarding world just throw Jews in there to run the fucking underground bank.’ And everyone was like, ‘Wizards,’” Stewart also said.

Stewart has since denied that he was accusing J.K. Rowling of antisemitism, the author also currently under scrutiny for her attacks on the transgender community. Regardless, the Proud Boys NJ Coalition Telegram account, did a repost on Jan. 4 of a posting from account called “ZoomerWaffen” that featured a screenshot of Stewart’s podcast with the goblins in an inset and a caption that read, “Amazing how they look at goblins and immediately recognize their race.”

The Telegram account features a number of racist and misogynistic postings, including of a video featuring an Asian person sitting in front of a Confederate Flag wearing a shirt that says White Pride, while urging to never back down if one is called a racist and in fact double down on it. There is also a post promoting a campaign called the Patriot Freedom Project which seeks to raise money for those that are incarcerated for allegedly participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, most of them Proud Boys. This effort is organized by Cynthia Hughes-Dunphy of Brick, NJ whose nephew is Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a reputed White supremacist who is known for anti-Semitic and racist statements as well as posing as Adolf Hitler. He was discharged from the Army Reserves after he was incarcerated for his alleged actions during the insurrection. The Patriot Freedom Project has reportedly raised $270,000 in donations.

In 2018, Hughes-Dunphy was in the news because a landslide swallowed her home’s backyard, costing $200,000 in damage.

Ironically, the Woodbridge Town Council held its first meeting since last month on Jan. 4 and again refused to denounce the Proud Boys. They did however order a “Hate Has No Home Here” sign removed from the aisles upon the insistence of resident Tom Maras, who at the last meeting said the Proud Boys were “welcome” while denouncing local members of Black Lives Matter as “wanting to create more racial divide.”