Antisemitism in Maryland

Prior to the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, Jewish people were excluded from living in many white Christian neighborhoods throughout Maryland due to the use of restrictive covenants and quotas.

[1] In 1826, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Jew Bill, which was ""An Act to extend to the sect of people professing the Jewish religion, the same rights and privileges enjoyed by Christians."

Prior to the passage of the act, the Maryland Constitution of 1776 had required that "a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion" for public office holders.

Antisemitic covenants and quotas were used to exclude Jews from Baltimore's Roland Park as well as several communities in Montgomery County, including Kensington, Chevy Chase, Potomac, and Bethesda.

"[3] The real estate developer James W. Rouse used antisemitic quotas when building in the affluent and predominantly white Christian neighborhood of Roland Park.

White Jewish real estate developers including Sam Eig and Esther Eig, Morris Cafritz, Jack and Abraham S. Kay, Carl M. Freeman, and Albert Small dispensed with antisemitic covenants but continued to use racial covenants to exclude African-Americans and other people of color from white neighborhoods.

Racist and antisemitic covenants were declared unenforceable by a 1948 Shelley v. Kraemer Supreme Court ruling and were banned by the 1968 Fair Housing Act.

In 1959, hearings before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, testimony noted bars against ownership by Jews in areas controlled by the Miller Companies including Wesley Heights and Sumner, with Spring Valley cited to be "of particular significance" owing to the prominence of its residents.

The fliers contained a conspiracy theory blaming Jews for the COVID-19 pandemic and promoted an antisemitic website that advocates Holocaust denial and supports Adolf Hitler.