(JTA) — A former Canadian politician reported a swastika carved in the snow near her home in St. Vital, Manitoba.
Chris Melnick, who served as a member of the Legislative Assembly, said she came upon the hate symbol on Feb. 2 while walking her dog, CBC Radio Canada reported Tuesday.
Underneath the symbol were the words “F*** Jews,” she said.
Melnick erased the swastika, saying it was near a school and that she didn’t want anyone else to have to see the hurtful message.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to understand this is wrong,” she told CBC. “This is hate and hate has no place in our community.”
B’nai Brith Canada said swastikas have also been scrawled into the snow on windshields of at least four cars in the Montreal borough of Outremont in recent days.
“As much as I hate to say this, anti-Semitism has become commonplace in Canada,” Amanda Hohmann, national director of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights, said in a news release. “There’s been significant underreporting of anti-Semitism in the past several years, but that’s changing now because discussion of racism against minorities has been trending in recent months.”
Last month, a swastika was drawn in the snow on the front lawn of a columnist for a Canadian Jewish publication in Ontario.
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