Police in Madison, Wisconsin, are investigating 30 cases of property damaged by graffiti on the Far West Side overnight Friday.<\/p>\n
The graffiti included some swastikas and anti-Semitic expressions, along with derogatory words directed toward women and minorities, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.<\/p>\n
Madison Police Officer David Dexheimer told the local WISC TV that garage doors, driveways and vehicles were targeted in the vandalism.<\/p>\n
Officers are still not sure whether any of the incidents were hate crimes, WKOW television reported.<\/p>\n
“While some of the things that were or painted are troubling, we don’t know that that was specifically targeted to a particular victim,” Dexheimer said.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, neighbors in the community called the incident a hate crime.<\/p>\n
“Everyone in the neighborhood is pretty upset,” Jim Stein, a neighbor who has lived on the street for 18 years, told WISC.<\/p>\n
Stein woke up Saturday morning to see “F— Jews” written on a garage door right across the street. Later in the day, once the snow cleared, a swastika was visible on the driveway.<\/p>\n
“It was, of course, extremely disturbing to me,” Stein, who is the president of the Jewish Federation of Madison, added.<\/p>\n
“This is anti-Semitic to the extent people feel comfortable equating Jewish people or the Jewish religion with sexual terms and sexual parts of people”s bodies,” he added.<\/p>\n
Stein told WISC that the vulgar language and swastika just across the street are too close for comfort.<\/p>\n
“To me, that reeks of anti-Semitism, and that’s an important wake-up call for the city of Madison,” he said.<\/p>\n
Officers said none of the victims saw any potential suspects around their homes.<\/p>\n
Police request that anyone with information call the Madison Police Department or Madison Area Crime Stoppers.<\/p>\n
America has proven not to be immune from the skyrocketing global anti-Semitism, as several severe cases of violence targeting Jews have occurred in recent months.<\/p>\n
In September, a yeshiva in the New Jersey town of Lakewood was broken into by a vandal who defaced the Jewish study hall with swastikas and other anti-Semitic hate symbols.<\/p>\n
In early August, 60-year-old Rabbi Joseph Raksin hy”d was shot to death as he walked to a local synagogue in Miami, Florida. Reportedly Raksin was shot by two young African-American men who fled the scene after the murder.<\/p>\n
(Displayed with permission from Arutz Sheva)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police in Madison, Wisconsin, are investigating 30 cases of property damaged by graffiti on the Far West Side overnight Friday. The graffiti included some swastikas and anti-Semitic expressions, along with derogatory words directed toward women and minorities, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. Madison Police Officer David Dexheimer told the local WISC TV that garage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5409,"featured_media":29649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n