The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) denounced the distribution of a fake, poison-pen newspaper article that was distributed in Darien two weeks ago.

The fake article, which attacked the Noroton Presbyterian Church and two of its pastors, was put in mailboxes sometime during the night or early morning of Friday, Feb. 8, 2019. It was published under the logo of the Jerusalem Post and the byline of CAMERA researcher Dexter Van Zile.

“Late Friday, I was sent an email about the hoax article by the church’s pastor,” Van Zile said. “He wrote he really hoped I didn’t write it because it was untrue and unkind.”

The article, which bears the Jerusalem Post logo at the top, claimed that a local Darien church called Noroton Presbyterian was “serving as a safe space” for a “virulently racist and anti-Semitic Palestinian agitator.”

“Whoever wrote the article used my name to pursue a personal vendetta against a local church,” Van Zile. “To say I’m upset and angry is, well, an understatement, shall we say.”

“I never wrote the absurd article nor did the Jerusalem Post ever publish it,” Van Zile said. “The whole thing’s a hoax, from beginning to end.”

Van Zile pointed out that the Jerusalem Post is an internationally influential newspaper with a reputation for covering stories of global significance. “The notion that they’d publish a long attack piece on a church in Darien, Connecticut is ludicrous,” he said.

“My hope is that nobody in Darien was harmed by this malicious article,” Van Zile said. “If I can discover who penned it, I will see what legal actions are available to me.”