Yoga instructor fired after employer reportedly discovers her relationship with, and assistance to, leader of antisemitic hate group
A yoga instructor has been fired after her employer reportedly discovered that her boyfriend is the leader of an antisemitic hate group.
Kelly Johnson was released from her position at a hot yoga studio in Berkeley, California after it was reported that her boyfriend is Jon Minadeo II, the leader of the antisemitic Goyim Defence League (GDL).
The GDL is a group is responsible for stunts such as visiting a Chabad centre to claim that “these Jewish terrorists” were behind 9/11, and hanging a banner on a Los Angeles overpass reading “Honk if you know the Jews want a race war.” Last year, Mr Minadeo II created t-shirts carrying antisemitic slogans such as the Holocaust was “a hoax”. Recently, they hung a banner from a bridge in Austin, Texas that read “Vax the Jews”.
Most recently, the GDL has been responsible for distributing antisemitic flyers to homes across the United States in less than one week, including the driveways of members of the Colleyville synagogue where a British Islamist recently took four people hostage. Written at the top of each flyer reads “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish” alongside the domain “goyim.tv”. The latest incident of flyer distribution has prompted an investigation by the FBI.
A statement released by the yoga studio confirmed that Ms Johnson “is no longer associated with Yoga Hell Petaluma or Hella Yoga Berkeley,” adding that “We are a firm believer in diversity and inclusion” before asserting that “Kelly seems to share in Jon’s beliefs” and “had assisted him in his business of hate.”
It continued: “We were devastated to find out that someone so close to us could be so far from our values.”
Jeff Renfro, a Jewish businessman and founder of Yoga Hell and Hella Yoga, said that he noticed a change in Ms Johnson’s attitudes towards the latter half of 2021, asserting that she even made a comment about sitting next to “smelly Jews” on a plane. Mr Renfro also claimed that after researching Mr Minadeo II, he found that Ms Johnson assisted the group’s leader with the paperwork in the creation of Goyim TV.
Mr Renfro explained the decision in firing Ms Johnson, who he said was “like a sister to him,” made harder due to their close personal and professional relationship. “I told her I’m Jewish, I explained to her that my mother was Jewish…This is something that is not okay, no matter how good of friends we are. This overrides our friendship.”
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