White nationalists around the world are creating memes celebrating Polish MP Grzegorz Braun’s Hanukkah stunt, making the fire extinguisher a new symbol of antisemitism. A far-right Polish MP’s attack on a Hanukkah display is being celebrated by white nationalists and antisemites worldwide, with the fire extinguisher used in the incident becoming a potent online symbol for anti-Jewish hate. MP Grzegorz Braun’s stunt last week—using a fire extinguisher to snuff out the candles on a menorah displayed in the Polish parliament building—has inspired a wave of memes referencing the incident, according to organisations which combat antisemitism and extremism, such as the New York-based Anti-Defamation League and Poland’s Never Again Association. One U.S.-based anti-Semitic group, the Goyim Defense League, even claimed during a Spaces event on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week that the fire extinguisher was “now the universal sign of the resistance to Jews.” One antisemitic meme being circulated on platforms such as Telegram is an updated version of the “Come and take it” flag, also known as the Gonzales flag. The original version of the flag depicts a silhouette of a cannon above the text “Come and take it,” before it was recently adapted by the gun-loving Right to feature an AR-15; in the latest iteration, white nationalists have replaced the weapon with a fire extinguisher. Another popular meme shows a suited Pepe the Frog – a figure heavily associated with the so-called alt-right – spraying a menorah with a fire extinguisher. Others referred to “fire extinguisher nationalists,” or featured the fire extinguisher alongside calls for action like: “End your local Hanukkah.” Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said the antisemitic fire extinguisher memes were generally being circulated within white supremacist circles. “They often depict the extinguisher blowing out Hanukkah candles as a weapon against Jews and Judaism,” she told VICE News. “The ‘Come and take it’ meme, for example, is an implicit call for ‘confrontation’ against Jews, with the implication that antisemites will fight to rid the world of Jews [and] Judaism.” Braun’s actions have also been celebrated on far-right online media shows, said Mayo. One recent episode of The Stew Peters Show, a weekly far-right show on Rumble, featured an interview with Lucas Gage, a vocal antisemite with a large online following. In the interview, a smiling Gage spoke approvingly of the rise of AI-generated fire extinguisher me
via vice: An Antisemitic Fire Extinguisher Attack on a Menorah Has Become a Global Far-Right Meme