By Victor Thorn –
On Oct. 12, Nazarius Cavan, a member of the AFP Distributor Program, contacted this writer to report that two New York City newsstand owners had been harassed and intimidated into removing, at least temporarily, the latest issue of AMERICAN FREE PRESS from their news racks.
To get further details, Norby Walters, an employee on the scene, told AFP, “I received a phone call from our store at 33rd St. near Penn Station stating that we had an hysterical man complaining. So, I went to that location to find this person screaming and accusing us of selling papers that promoted anti-Semitism.”
Unable to speak rationally with this individual, Walters replayed what happened next.
“This man, who didn’t identify himself and continued to act like a bully, said he intended to call the ADL or JDL and have 100 Jews protest in front of our newsstand.”
Even more incredibly, the man promised to “have Mayor Bloomberg shut down our operation.”
After the man issued these threats, Walters showed him a copy of AFP’s issue 42, pointing out that it wasn’t anti-Semitic.
Commendably, Walters refused to back down by responding: “If you represent Jewish people and treat me like a piece of crap, then I deserve an apology. It’s people like you that create anti-Semitism in the first place.”
After the protester left, Walters called his boss—who is Jewish—and was told to pull all copies of AFP, and then put them back on the racks later.
As Walters returned to work, Cavan resumed his conversation with AFP. “The reason I distribute copies of the newspaper at Penn Bookstore and the other two newsstands is because they’re prime locations. It’s always busy.”
When asked what he thought would result from this altercation, Cavan predicted, “I think we may have more trouble with the ADL now that this incident happened.”
