A rural Tennessee area was rocked this week after 1000’s of properties acquired mailers encouraging them to affix the native Younger Republicans chapter with a marketing campaign platform together with “No wars for Jews.”
The flyers led to a dramatic showdown at an area GOP assembly, together with a state lawmaker’s cry of “I’m a Jew!” and a rejoinder from Austin Lee, the younger man behind the flyers: “We won’t battle wars for you.” Cops escorted the provocateur out.
“Let’s face it, we examine antisemitism and anti-Black or white nationalism, proper?” the lawmaker, State Rep. Scott Cepicky, advised the Jewish Telegraphic Company. “We hear about these items, and persons are like, ‘Nicely, you recognize, that’s over there, or that’s in one other state, that’s not right here.’ Let me inform you one thing. It got here to Maury County.”
The mailers, which inspired recipients to “help” Lee, additionally stated “Cease the Nice Alternative” (a reference to the antisemitic Nice Alternative Idea), “Ban Islam and Hinduism” and “Males in cost.”
“Nonwhite foreigners have invaded our nation and are changing White Individuals,” learn the flyers, considered by JTA and reportedly despatched to round 2,000 households with younger white males. “Efforts at mass deportations have failed. Nobody is coming to save lots of us; we should resolve this downside ourselves.”
The flyers had been mailed primarily in Maury County, 50 miles south of Nashville, in addition to some surrounding counties. Along with Lee’s title and an invite to affix the Maury County Younger Republicans, they contained the distinguished emblem of the Tennessee Younger Republicans — invoking broader considerations {that a} youthful era of Republicans are trending towards antisemitic and white nationalist concepts.
Nevertheless, native Republican leaders advised JTA the mailers had been despatched out with out permission; that Lee holds no formal management position within the county GOP; and that the county’s Younger Republicans chapter is at the moment inactive.
The county GOP chair strongly denounced the content material of the mailers to JTA.
“It’s appalling that anyone would ship this out,” Jason Gilliam advised JTA about his response to the flyers. “This sort of factor actually disgusts me. I imply, I’ve an Israeli flag on my bumper — not that which means something.”
Gilliam stated he first turned conscious of the flyers on Sunday, after households had begun receiving them. At an area GOP assembly the following day, Cepicky condemned the flyers by invoking his personal Jewish ancestry.
Tennessee GOP state Rep. Scott Cepicky, March 25, 2026. (Screenshot by way of YouTube)
“I’m a Jew, I’m an Ashkenazi Jew,” Cepicky advised the gang on the GOP assembly in a video taken and later posted by Lee himself. “My household left Israel, moved to Central Europe. Within the 30s, you recognize what occurred in Central Europe with Jews. My household immigrated to america.”
After Cepicky threatened to “pursue the legislation on these people” who distributed the mailer, Lee, who was additionally in attendance on the assembly, recognized himself.
Cepicky accused Lee of spreading rhetoric “espoused in Europe” within the Thirties. Lee responded, “It was proper then, and it’s proper now. We won’t battle wars for you.” Lee was later escorted from the occasion by legislation enforcement. Lee has on social media cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “conflict for Jews.”
Cepicky advised JTA he felt compelled to denounce Lee’s antisemitism partly as a result of he was standing in entrance of a duplicate of the preamble to the U.S. Structure on the assembly.
“It was behind me, and it spurred me to say, ‘That doesn’t say, “We the Christians,” or, “We the Jews,” or, “We the Islamics,” or, “We the lads, we the ladies.” It doesn’t say that,’” he stated. “It says, ‘We the individuals.’”
Cepicky advised JTA that he’s a working towards Christian who found his Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry on 23andMe. He stated his household arrived someday after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He made his first journey to Israel in 2024, to go to the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and helped discovered the Tennessee Israel Caucus within the state legislature shortly thereafter.
Austin Lee, a Tennessee Republican who distributed antisemitic mailers, promotes the Nice Alternative concept in a social media video, June 16, 2026. (Screenshot by way of X)
Gilliam and Cepicky each described Lee to JTA as an rare attendee at county GOP conferences who holds no management position with the get together, and stated the county Younger Republicans chapter was inactive. They added they’d be pushing for an investigation into what they stated was his unauthorized use of the county and state Younger Republicans title on his mailers.
In social media posts and different interviews following the assembly, Lee continued to claim that he was the president of Maury County Younger Republicans. He additionally referred to Cepicky a number of instances as “Jewish Consultant Scott Cepicky.”
“I took over that chapter,” Lee stated in an interview Wednesday with an area radio station, claiming he had used a “course of” to reactivate the native Younger Republicans group. He declined to reply questions on who funded his mailers.
In an announcement to media, the statewide Tennessee Younger Republicans stated using their emblem “was not licensed” and stated the group “didn’t, and doesn’t, authorize, endorse, or help the current communications printed by the Maury County Younger Republicans.”
As of press time, the Tennessee Younger Republicans checklist Maury County as an lively chapter on their web site. Efforts by JTA to contact the group’s statewide director had been unsuccessful. In current months, official Younger Republicans chapters throughout the nation have turn into embroiled in antisemitism controversies.
Whether or not Lee has any extra stable reference to native GOP officers was a matter of dispute. Gilliam claimed he had first been launched to Lee by Aaron Miller, an area elected GOP county commissioner with whom Gilliam has since had a falling-out over unrelated issues. Requested about his relationship to Miller on the radio, Lee declined to remark.
Reached by JTA on Friday, Miller denied he had any connection to Lee past that “we had beers a few instances.”
“I don’t agree along with his politics. I don’t agree along with his method,” Miller advised JTA. “I bought a mailer and I used to be like, ‘Oh, OK, that is attention-grabbing.’”
Lee didn’t reply to a JTA request for remark.
Miller did say that younger males, feeling unrepresented by the present Republican Celebration, are searching for out “options to liberal democracy.” He has advocated for the county GOP to achieve out extra to the inhabitants, he stated.
“Something the place you’re going to method a whole group of individuals with a blanket mindset, I feel that’s depraved,” he stated. “We’re all made in God’s picture.”
Gilliam and Cepicky advised JTA that, along with the antisemitism, they strongly objected to the mailers’ anti-immigrant rhetoric and misogyny. At a time of Republican-led immigration crackdowns on the nationwide stage, and as nationwide figures together with Vice President JD Vance have downplayed the rise of antisemitism throughout the get together, these native GOP leaders loudly insisted such forces needs to be stamped out.
“This sort of stuff is completely not going to be allowed. I can’t stand for it,” Gilliam stated. “When you don’t lower the top off the snake, it’s going to return again, proper? It’s not going to cease. It’s solely going to fester. It’s going to develop. And this type of factor, the roots have to be yanked out of the bottom.”
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