Fliers proclaiming "Take America back from the Jews" were thrown in the driveway of the Jewish Community Alliance on San Jose Boulevard, area homes and two nearby Jacksonville synagogues Sunday morning, only a week before the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

The discovery of the fliers, claimed to come from the Detroit-based neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement, has a local rabbi whose synagogue members received them calling it "very disturbing."

This is the second time in just over a year that fliers purported to come from the Neo-Nazi group were distributed at Mandarin- and Southside-area synagogues and homes. Etz Chaim Synagogue Rabbi Yakov Fisch said none showed up at his place of worship, also on San Jose Boulevard, but several of its members found them in their driveways Sunday.

"It should be a wake-up call for the community how much bigotry is lurking in the background, and we have to be vigilant," he said. "I had a congregant call me distraught, saying that she found it in her driveway. It is definitely very disturbing. They have their First Amendment rights and it is technically legal to be a hater and throw out hatred."

Jewish Federation of Jacksonville Executive Director Alan Margolies, whose office shares the community alliance campus, said members of the city's Jewish community he spoke with Monday say the flier distribution is "deplorable," and he agrees. He said the synagogues and Jewish leaders are in touch with the Sheriff's Office and FBI about the fliers.

"We have been informed by local law enforcement that while deplorable, whoever is distributing these are not in violation of the law and are protected by freedom of speech rights," Margolies said.

The Sheriff's Office did investigate the situation but reiterated that no crime was committed since distribution of fliers like this is an exercise in free speech, Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Melissa Bujeda said.

The movement's website can't be reached any more. But a copy of its home page from Saturday saved on Google is headlined "Putting Family, Race and Nation First while Fighting to Secure American Jobs, Manufacturing and Innovation." No one responded to a message left at the group's telephone number, its answering machine message calling itself the only political party "dedicated to white interests."

According to the Sunday police information report filed by the community alliance, staff found the notes tossed over the two entrance gates to the Jewish Community Alliance's main parking lot just before 6 a.m. Sunday, three behind one gate and four behind another. Police have confiscated the notes.

Last year's propaganda distribution occurred on June 11, 2015, with weighted plastic bags with similar fliers thrown in front of the Congregation Ahavath Chesed on San Jose Boulevard, the alliance and nearby homes. Those fliers advocated opposition to "race mixing and non-white immigration" and showed a man dressed in a black uniform as well as the organization's logo, which contains a Nazi swastika.

The Anti-Defamation League calls the National Socialist Movement the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States, founded in 1974 and led by Jeff Schoep. In a statement issued Monday, the 103-year-old organization that fights anti-Semitism "strongly condemns" distribution of the fliers in Jacksonville.

"While the distribution of these fliers may be legal under the First Amendment, they have left many in the community fearful, and not just the Jewish residents," Florida Regional Director Hava L. Holzhauer said. "It is ironic that as the Jewish new year approaches, a time where we look inward and renew our commitments to family, community, social justice and repairing the world, this neo-Nazi group is highlighting the exact opposite in its attempts to foster bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism."

Along with the movement's fliers in mid-2015 in the same parts of Jacksonville, Holzhauer said similar ones have been distributed in recent years in Wakulla and Lake Butler. But while it may be the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States, Holzhauer said it only has about 100 core members.

Rosh Hashana begins at sundown Sunday.

Dan Scanlan: (904) 359-4549