Officials condemn antisemitic and anti-Israel vandalism at 2 Philadelphia-area synagogues

• Published date: 02 April 2024
• Author: ANDREW LAPIN/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The incidents prompted rebuke from Pennsylvania's Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, as well as from national figures including CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who is Jewish and had his bar mitzvah at one of the targeted synagogues

That synagogue, Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in the suburb of Wynnewood, had a banner expressing solidarity with Israel tagged with a swastika over the weekend. Another synagogue, Temple Beth Zion-Beth Israel in Center City, had graffiti spray-painted on the sidewalk by its entrance last week.

"This is the second message I've written like this in as many days. It's two too many," Shapiro wrote on X, formerly Twitter, Sunday while linking to a story about the Beth Hillel-Beth El graffiti. "Antisemitism and the vandalism of a house of worship of any kind have no place in this Commonwealth."

Other Jewish institutions have been targeted across the country in the wake of the war, including in the Philadelphia region just weeks ago: "Free Gaza" graffiti was spray-painted on a Jewish-owned business in nearby Narberth on March 15. (The owner of the business is an Israeli who has relatives being held by Hamas in Gaza.) Last week federal authorities also charged a West Michigan man with damaging religious property after he spray-painted swastikas onto a Chabad house in Kalamazoo in November and defaced a large menorah posted outside the center.

But the prominence and proximity of these two synagogues made the recent incidents stand out.

"Last night someone spray painted a swastika at the synagogue where i was bar mitzvahed," Tapper wrote on X Sunday.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Beth Hillel-Beth El's Israel banner had been defaced. The first time the previous weekend, nondescript paint was splashed onto the banner, which reads, "Our Community Stands With Israel." The community replaced the banner the next day and intends to do so again now that it's been defaced for the second time, its senior rabbi told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

"Thank God the community is OK," Rabbi Ethan Witkowsky said. "We're shaken, but we're strong and we're healthy and safe."

The synagogue's leadership offered a more pointed rebuke of the...