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‘Ugly hatred’: LA synagogue vandalized during riots

“The answer to hate and bigotry is not more hate,” Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles tweeted.

By Aaron Sull, World Israel News

Violent riots across the country, sparked by the death of an African-American who was killed by police brutality, spread to the Jewish community in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles on Saturday.

Anti-Semitic graffiti that read “F-Israel, Free Palestine,” was found on the wall of Congregation Beth Israel, one of the oldest synagogues in Los Angeles, first reported by Lisa Daftari, founder and editor of The Foreign Desk website.

“Synagogue Congregation Beth Israel on Beverly Blvd. in Los Angeles vandalized… Tell me this ugly hatred is still about #BLM or #GeorgeFloyd?!” Daftari tweeted on Saturday.

Jewish advocacy groups condemned the anti-Semitic graffiti.

“Vandalism is never ok,” Anti-Defamation League Los Angeles tweeted. “Antisemitism is never ok. The answer to hate and bigotry is not more hate. We are better than this Los Angeles.”

“Once again we see vile anti-Semitism being disguised as activism. To vandalize a synagogue during this horrific time does nothing but further divide a broken country,” Liora Rez, director of StopAntisemitism.org, told the Jewish Journal.

As protests raged across Minneapolis on Wednesday, anti-Semitic graffiti was found on a bench across the street from a synagogue in the southern part of the city.

According to a statement by the leadership of the Shir Tikvah Congregation, locals discovered the vandalism that read “Seig Heil, Heil Hitler, Trump 2020,” and reported it to the police and the Jewish Community Relations Council.

“We are grateful to these neighbors who, with love and pain, brought these to our attention (and one went home to get electrical tape to cover what he saw, before calling in the incident),” the statement said.

The death of 46-year-old George Floyd, an African-American who was recorded on video pleading for air after a Minneapolis policeman pressed on his neck for nine-minutes on Monday, continues to spark violent riots across the United States.