Law enforcement agencies in Washington, Michigan and Oregon are all investigating incidents of anti-Semitism concerning hateful or threatening signs and graffiti.
Police in Washington D.C. are investigating a possible hate crime after an anti-Semitic slur was found scrawled in the Georgetown neighborhood. According to the the DCist, the word “kike,” a derogatory word for a Jewish person, was found in white letters on a redbrick wall of a building used by the Duke Ellington School of the Arts to store athletic equipment.
“I am sure, personally, that this went up after Charlottesville. There’s no way [it had been up for long],” Kishan Putta, who lives around the corner, told the local news website. “So many people walk by there… This graffiti was not in the center of the city; it wasn’t on monuments or trying to make a national statement. It’s trying to make a local statement—trying to scare our neighbors.”
“The Charlottesville terrorism is thought of as pro-Confederate, anti-black, but it was hate of all forms. Hate against immigrants, non-Christian religions, anti-Semitism. Some of the loudest chants were about Jews,” he said. “It is bad enough to know that we have people not only harboring such views living near us, but for them to want to share that publicly and strike terror in their neighbors.”
“I can’t believe this is happening in 2017—especially in our community. I condemn this act and the underlying sentiments unequivocally and vehemently,” Eric Langenbacher, president of the Burleith Citizens Association and a professor at the university, wrote to a local listserv. “This is not what Burleithians, Washingtonians, or Americans stand for.”
According to the DCist, 12 out of 18 religion-related crimes reported in 2016 were against Jews.
Swastika in Michigan
Police in Ann Arbor, Michigan, are investigating a similar case. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the city’s Veteran’s Memorial Park was closed down on Friday following the discovery of swastikas and messages such as “Jews die” and “Free USA.”
“The Ann Arbor Police Detective Bureau is actively investigating this incident,” the police said in a statement. As a result of this incident, there will be an increase in police patrols in and around the city parks.”
Anti-Jewish Signs in Oregon
Meanwhile, in Oregon, Jewish tourists from California were horrified to see anti-Semitic signs hanging from highway overpasses over the weekend, telling a local newspaper that they could not believe they still had “to face this vicious anti-Semitism in such a public place in 2017.”
Speaking with the Willamette Week, Beth Dershowitz described the signs, which stated “UNJEW HUMANITY” and “Jewish financing available.”
We witnessed two seemingly coordinated displays of hate on overpasses yesterday heading north,” Dershowitz told WW via email.
The Oregonian reported that based on his social media posts, the likely culprit for the signs is Jimmy Marr, a Springfield man with a history of anti-semitism.
By: World Israel News Staff