A white supremacist has taken out an advertisement in a small northern Maine newspaper promoting a book-burning event later this year — a public display that reflected a growing comfort that hate groups have felt in promoting their messages in Maine and elsewhere in recent years.
While racist groups have long used keyboard activism to spread their messages online, where it’s easy to remain anonymous, they’re now using various tactics to spend more time in the public eye.
That has included harassing local officials, testifying on state and local policy changes, disrupting public meetings and distributing signs and other promotional materials. Those activities have coincided with a nationwide jump in reports of anti-semitic and anti-immigrant behavior in recent years, according to experts who track those incidents.
The New England White Network, led by New Hampshire activist Ryan Murdough, was behind the recent advertisement in the Aroostook County newspaper, along with some other recent public demonstrations across Maine.
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“June Book Burning,” said the ad, which ran in a March issue of the Fort Fairfield Journal. “During pride month, New England White Network is going to party like it’s 1933.”
It included multiple allusions to Nazi history. Although the month was off, it referenced an episode from May 1933 in which the National Socialist German Students’ Association burned more than 25,000 volumes of what it deemed anti-Nazi books. The ad also featured a logo for the New England White Network that resembled the Iron Cross, a famous German military medal.
Self-proclaimed National Socialist Ryan Murdough, founder of the New England White Network, took out an ad for a June Book Burning in an Aroostook County newspaper. Credit: Fort Fairfield Journal ad
“The ad was an opportunity to post something pretty extreme and draw attention,” said Christopher Magyarics, a senior investigative researcher for the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism who has tracked Murdough’s activities.
Magyarics pointed to other recent cases in which Murdough’s group has tried to put its views into wider circulation. Last year, his group began posting messages on community bulletin boards, along hiking trails and on magazine racks around Maine, Magyarics said. Its materials have generally taken aim at Jewish-owned businesses and public officials it views as anti-white, including Maine Gov. Janet Mills.
In one case from January 2024, Murdough sent a letter to Mohammed Albehadli, who was then the coordinator for diversity, equity and inclusion in the South Portland schools. The letter pushed Albehadli to quit his job and move his family out of the state, according to the Press Herald.
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The district’s superintendent called the email “the most vile” message he had seen during 35 years in education, and Albehadli told the newspaper that the “message raised safety concerns for my family and I … We could not feel safe again after receiving it.”
In March, the New England White Network provided testimony against Maine legislation that would recognize certain Muslim celebrations as state holidays.
“As White Nationalists, it’s our job to stand up for White people and hold elected leaders’ feet to the fire when they implicitly express solutions for our people,” said Jay Gonzalez, director of the group’s Maine chapter, in written testimony. “It’s also our duty to publicize our grievances and force them into the mainstream.”
The Anti-Defamation League reports a significant increase in the distribution of antisemitic literature and this hate map indicates antisemitic incidents around the nation, including Maine. Credit: Courtesy Anti-Defamation League.
In recent years, there has been a broader increase in reports of hateful acts across the nation.
The Anti-Defamation League found there was a 200 percent increase in reports of anti-semitic incidents from October 2023 to September 2024 — in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel — compared with a year earlier. The number of incidents topped 10,000.
Immigrants and refugees also faced more harassment during that time, especially after a viral disinformation campaign last fall about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which was embraced by President Donald Trump, according to ADL.
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Jeff Tischauser, a senior researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center, attributed some of the uptick to Trump, who in his new administration has attacked diversity initiatives and pardoned Jan. 6 insurrectionists, including those linked to racist groups such the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers.
“There is a sense that the Trump administration and the FBI under Kash Patel is not going to take violence against the left as seriously as previous administrations,” Tischauser said.
While hate groups have long shared their views online, they have also been happy to trumpet examples of their message getting a wider audience.
Last fall, Christopher Pohlhaus, a former Maine resident who founded the notorious Blood Tribe neo-Nazi group, claimed credit for stoking the online rumors about Springfield, Ohio.
Magyarics noted that Murdough ran as a white supremacist in 2010 for the New Hampshire State House.
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In response to questions from the Bangor Daily News, Murdough said that the New England White Network has multiple chapters that are promoting their causes in venues such as town council and school board meetings.
He noted that the only people allowed to attend the upcoming book burning in Maine will be vetted members of the network.
But that isn’t stopping Murdough from using the event to promote his group. After the ad recently ran in the Fort Fairfield Journal, he shared photos of it online and declared the Aroostook County publication “the most pro-White newspaper” in the nation.
The paper’s editor and publisher, David Deschesne, said in an email response to the BDN that his newspaper is not pro-white, but rather that he accepted the ad from Murdough in the interest of allowing free speech.
“I am just the middleman providing information — albeit information about an ideology I do not agree with — which is a position all newspapers/news organizations should be doing,” he said. “One cannot provide that service by arbitrarily gatekeeping and deciding whose speech should be protected and whose speech shouldn’t be.”
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The letter’s publication caused an outcry among some local readers. Deschesne pointed to a letter he received from a Mapleton woman that was published in the April 2 issue.
In the letter, Nicole Gamblin questioned why the paper accepted an ad for such “a heinous and horrific event.”
“By choosing to take a buck and post this, you are promoting hate and violence,” Gamblin wrote. “We have too much of this in our world right now. We must do better.”
The body of a missing Sedgwick woman was found a short distance from her residence Saturday morning, officials said.
Glenith Gray, 77, was reported missing from her home at 15 Parker Lane at about 3 a.m., according to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office.
The Maine Warden Service was called in at 6 a.m. to assist with the search, deploying five wardens and three K-9 units.
Cellphone tower data helped lead searchers to Gray’s body at about 9:45 a.m., a short distance from the residence, said Mark Latti, spokesperson for the Maine Warden Service.
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Her death was not considered suspicious and appeared to be weather-related, though the state medical examiner’s office was notified, which is standard in unattended deaths.
Gray had worked as a real estate agent and developer, as well as serving in the Maine State Legislature in the 1990s.
Rabbi Levi Wilansky is the director of Chabad of Maine.
Last week, an 88-year-old Army veteran named Ed Bambas went viral.
An Australian TikToker saw the elderly man standing behind a cash register, when Ed shared that he works eight hours a day, five days a week.
It’s not because Ed loves working retail, but because 13 years ago, he lost his pension and life insurance when General Motors went bankrupt. Around the same time, his wife fell gravely ill and he sold their home to pay her medical bills. Seven years ago, Ed’s wife passed away and he is still working full-time at a grocery store — just to survive.
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Within days, strangers who watched the video had set up a GoFundMe and raised more than $1.5 million to help this veteran retire with dignity.
Ed’s story shows the power that one person had to spark a major wave of kindness around the world. Through just one short video, a social media influencer unleashed immense generosity from people who just wanted to help a stranger.
This same dynamic is reflected in the menorah, the central symbol of the festival of Chanukah, coming up this year from December 14-22. For each night of the eight-day holiday, we light the menorah, gather with family and friends, and retell the story of the Macabbees.
On the first night, we light the menorah with just one candle. Each subsequent night of the holiday, we add another candle, until all eight lights are kindled on the last night. The second century sage Hillel learned a lesson from this order: that it’s not enough to just spread light. Rather, we must always be increasing in the light we share.
This can be done practically through acts of kindness in the community. To address darkness in its many manifestations — mental illness, poverty, homelessness or the myriad other issues that people in Maine are facing — we cannot just do one good deed and call it a day. Instead, we must begin with one small act of kindness, and then build off that to do more to help the community.
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That’s why this year, Chabad of Maine launched Kitchen of Kindness. It’s a non-denominational initiative, bringing together volunteers from across our community to prepare nutritious, high-quality Kosher meals for people facing food insecurity throughout Southern Maine. During this season, when so many gather with family, food support is critical for those struggling.
The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, once called America a malchut shel chesed — a nation of kindness. Despite the numerous challenges we face, that spirit lives on — especially in Maine. It lives in the stranger who helps you dig out your car after a storm. It lives in the recognition that we’re responsible for one another, especially during our dark winters when isolation can turn dangerous.
This Sunday, December 14, the first night of Chanukah, I invite people of all backgrounds to join us in front of Portland City Hall for a grand menorah lighting. Starting at 4:30 p.m., we’ll have live music, a Giant Gelt Drop, and delicious Chanukah treats. We will also be building a “Can-ora”—a menorah constructed entirely from donated canned goods, all of which will be distributed to people in need. Throughout the rest of Chanukah, Chabad of Maine will light menorahs across Southern Maine, including at the State Capitol.
My hope for this Chanukah is to inspire everyone to spread the light. Whether it’s donating to the “Can-Ora”, volunteering, raising money for a cause you believe in, or simply checking in on a neighbor who might be struggling, we all have a responsibility to increase in goodness and kindness. The story of Ed Bambas, and of the menorah, teaches us that even though the world faces challenges, our capacity to make a difference begins with one act of light.
The Grand Menorah Lighting takes place Sunday, December 14, at 4:30 p.m. in front of City Hall, followed by a community celebration at Portland High School’s Chestnut Street entrance. To learn more about the Kitchen of Kindness or to volunteer, visit ChabadOfMaine.com or email [email protected].
PORTLAND, Maine — Loons are on the mend in Maine, filling more of the state’s lakes and ponds with their haunting calls, although conservations say the birds aren’t out of the woods yet.
Maine is home to a few thousand of the distinctive black-and-white waterbirds — the East Coast’s largest loon population — and conservationists said efforts to protect them from threats helped grow the population. An annual count of common loons found more adults and chicks this year than last, Maine Audubon said this week.
The group said it estimated a population for the southern half of Maine of 3,174 adult loons and 568 chicks. Audubon bases its count on the southern portion of Maine because there are enough bird counters to get a reliable number. The count is more than twice the number when they started counting in 1983, and the count of adult adult loons has increased 13% from 10 years ago.
“We’re cautiously optimistic after seeing two years of growing chick numbers,” said Maine Audubon wildlife ecologist Tracy Hart. “But it will take several more years before we know if that is a real upward trend, or just two really good years.”
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Maine lawmakers have attempted to grow the population of the loons with bans on lead fishing tackle that the birds sometimes accidentally swallow. Laws that limit boat speeds have also helped because they prevent boat wakes from washing out nests, conservation groups say.
It’s still too early to know if Maine’s loons are on a sustainable path to recovery, and the success of the state’s breeding loons is critical to the population at large, Hart said. Maine has thousands more loons than the other New England states, with the other five states combining for about 1,000 adults. The state is home to one of the largest populations of loons in the U.S., which has about 27,000 breeding adults in total.
Minnesota has the most loons in the lower 48 states, with a fairly stable population of about 12,000 adults, but they are in decline in some parts of their range.
While loons are not listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, they are considered threatened by some states, including New Hampshire and Michigan. The U.S. Forest Service also considers the common loon a sensitive species.
The birds migrate to the ocean in late fall and need a long runway to take off, meaning winter can be a treacherous time for the birds because they get trapped by ice in the lakes and ponds where they breed, said Barb Haney, executive director of Avian Haven, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Freedom, Maine.
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“We’re getting a lot of calls about loons that are iced in,” Haney said, adding that the center was tending to one such patient this week.
