(JTA) – Anti-Semitic graffiti was spray-painted on some 30 cars and buildings in a San Antonio neighborhood near an Orthodox synagogue.
The graffiti discovered Wednesday morning in the Texas city included swastikas and references to the Ku Klux Klan, according to local reports. At least one car’s side window was smashed in with a rock.
The San Antonio Police are investigating the incident.
Much of the vandalism was centered on Sholom Drive and Sholom Place, streets that border Congregation Rodfei Sholom. Most of the congregation’s 300 member families live near the synagogue.
“I want to tell those who did this that you have done something destructive,” Rabbi Arnold Scheinberg of Rodfei Shalom told News Radio 1200 WOAI. “Your life could be much better if you could have more love than hate. We’re sorry for you; we are sorry the way you express your life.”
The synagogue members are “outraged that in this day and age there are people who still live in their own minds and own worlds where it seems to be OK to hate people based on their religion,” synagogue board member Howard Feinberg told the Times-Picayune newspaper. “We are cleaning up and moving on.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.