Justin Bale, who owns a business in Olathe, Kansas, that grows more than 100 kinds of peppers and tomatoes and sells seasonings and hot sauces, has been kicked out of an Overland Park, Kansas, farmers market for antisemitic posts on social media.
The owner of Pepper Cave, identified as a “Christian family business,” even offered customers a discount code of “GasThejews,” The Kansas City Star reported. Bale also posted social media messages denying the Holocaust and calling for the extermination of the Jewish people.
A spokeswoman for the city of Overland Park said that Bale was “suspended indefinitely” from the farmers market.
Undeterred, Bale doubled down after being booted out. He posted on social media that he now has “much more time to dedicate to online sales and we can switch the chip recipe to lard!” (It wasn’t clear if that was a reference that was intended to call attention to something non-kosher.)
“Remember to save 14.88% on all orders with code: GasThejews,” he wrote. “My name is Justin Bale. I live in Olathe, KS. I fear no jew!”
The discount was apparently a reference to the neo-Nazi 1488 code that the Anti-Defamation League called “a combination of two popular white supremacist numeric symbols.”
On Aug. 24, Pepper Cave posted on its Facebook page that they had their biggest online sales day ever.
Community reactions
Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC (JCRB|AJC) Executive Director Gavriela Geller said in a statement that Bale’s “hateful posts on social media platforms are disturbing examples of the virulent and growing antisemitism our community faces today… sadly, white nationalist and white supremacist ideologies that fueled this particular person’s hatred have been gaining traction in suburban areas for years.” Geller also implores community members to report instances of antisemitism to JCRB|AJC and learn at their website.
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education shared The Kansas City Star’s article on Facebook, adding that “it can be tempting to see antisemitism as only coming from fringe elements or something happening somewhere else, but not in our own community. Every time antisemitic statements occur – especially online where they can be amplified by anonymous affirmation – it moves society closer to normalizing this hatred and making it an acceptable part of our social discourse, which it is not. This is not a distant phenomenon, but something we need to be vigilant about addressing in our own community.”
Fox4 KC reported that a business owner in De Soto, Kansas, immediately threw away his stock of Pepper Cave products upon learning about Bale’s antisemitic posts and beliefs. JCRB|AJC “deeply appreciate and applaud their swift and decisive condemnation of extremism.”
The Kansas City Jewish Chronicle staff contributed to the reporting in this article.