Sonoma County Hate Group Ties Trigger Yoga Teacher's Firing

SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A Sonoma County yoga instructor involved in a relationship with the founder of an antisemitic digital media company behind a hate-fueled disinformation campaign behind a hate-fueled disinformation campaign has been fired.

The owner of Yoga Hell in Petaluma and Hella Yoga and Funky Door Yoga in Berkeley announced Kelly Johnson’s firing on the home page of the company’s website, promising to donate the studio’s profits to a Holocaust memorial fund.

Johnson’s boyfriend is Jon Minadeo, Jr., a Petaluma man who co-founded Goyim TV, a company that’s been linked to the distribution of antisemitic flyers in communities statewide promoting claims that Jews are responsible for the pandemic, The Press Democrat reports.

“We are a firm believer in diversity and inclusion, due to recent activities brought to our attention Kelly Johnson is no longer affiliated with Hella Yoga Berkeley or Yoga Hell Petaluma,” Jeff Renfro wrote on the company’s website.

“All profits from Hella Yoga Berkeley will be donated to the Auschwitz Memorial Fund.”

Johnson distanced herself from her boyfriend’s views and said allegations that she holds racist views have been hurtful in an interview with The San Francisco Chronicle.

The Jewish News of Northern California, J., first reported Johnson’s case.

Renfro’s company alleged Johnson played a role in propagating Minadeo’s messaging in an email to customers obtained by J.

“Kelly seems to share in Jon’s beliefs” and “had assisted him in his business of hate,” Renfro said, according to the report.

Goyim TV is operated by the Goyim Defense League, a loose confederacy of hate groups responsible for at least “74 antisemitic propaganda incidents in 2021” according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The Goyim Defense League parodies the ADL by replacing “Anti-Defamation” with “Goyim Defense.”

“Goyim” is considered a disparaging word for non-Jews in Hebrew and Yiddish.

“GDL’s overarching goal is to cast aspersions on Jews and spread antisemitic myths and conspiracy theories,” according to the ADL’s website.

“This includes frequent references to Jews having undue power through their “control” of major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government, or disparaging Jews as degenerates who molest children and advocate for pornography, abortion and LGBTQ+ communities. GDL maintains that the Holocaust is a Jewish lie, and accounts of the Holocaust are merely propaganda or lies generated by Jews for their own benefit.

“Similarly, the GDL says that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York and Israel intentionally targeted a U.S. warship during the height of the 1967 Six-Day War.”

Read more in The Jewish News of Northern California