Maryland Schools Targeted in Swastika Graffiti Spree

Swastikas and antisemitic messages were graffitied on the grounds of several schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, local news outlets reported on Tuesday.

Police were called on Monday morning to four different schools — Thomas S. Wootton High School, Winston Churchill High School, Fallsmead Elementary School, Strathmore Elementary School — that were targeted, with the perpetrators aiming some of their invective at Israel.

Antisemitism is not new to Montgomery County, which is home to over 100,000 members of the Jewish community. Last week, a sign reading “We Support Israel” outside a synagogue in Bethesda, Maryland was graffitied with antisemitic messages.

The incident at the synagogue came just two days after similar antisemitic graffiti was found near Bethesda Elementary School. “Israel rapes men, women, and children” was spray-painted on a school sign, and “Free Gaza” was reportedly painted onto a nearby crosswalk and sidewalk.

A similar incident occurred in 2022, when “Jews not welcome” was graffitied on a sign outside of Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.

Following the wave of incidents, local residents came together to organize a community effort to remove the graffiti. Some of it was cleaned by children, according to photographs shared by local outlet WTOP.

“We are committed to maintaining a safe, inclusive environment where all students, staff, and caregivers feel safe, valued, seen, heard, and have a sense of belonging,” Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) said in a statement shared by a local CBS affiliate. “We firmly denounce divisive actions that perpetuate hate, inequality, and injustice against any person, family, or community. We must unite to recognize and embrace our differences and not let them divide us.”

Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, added in a statement, “We thank MCPS and [the Montgomery County Police Department] officials for their quick response to these damaging incidents — and for ensuring that security and law enforcement patrols are being stepped up as necessary. We are confident that people of goodwill across all backgrounds and faiths will see these acts for what they are: hateful words designed to tear our communities apart rather than bring them together.”

Elsewhere in Maryland, antisemitism on the streets of Baltimore has distressed the Jewish community there, according to numerous reports by local outlets and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which has documented incidents of vandalism, harassment, and assault.

In June, Baltimore’s mayor and police chief denounced a slew of antisemitic incidents in which the homes of Jewish families in the Glen section of the city were graffitied with swastikas. As many as 10 homes were targeted in the spree of hate, according to a local NBC affiliate, shocking locals who were dismayed that the incidents occurred in their neighborhood. Baltimore law enforcement officials, who decried similar incidents that struck the city in recent months, opened a hate crime investigation to find and bring the perpetrators to justice.

In December, vandals twice slashed a pro-Israel sign displayed on the lawn of the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in Pikesville, local media reported. In a later incident in March, a gang of teenagers mugged and assaulted two Jewish men who were walking into their synagogue. The youths reportedly chased one of the men and stole a “large amount of cash” from the other. More recently, an Israeli flag was ripped and stolen from the porch of a doctor’s office earlier this summer.

Across the state of Maryland, which had the seventh most antisemitic incidents in the US in 2023, outrages targeting the Jewish community increased 211 percent compared to the prior year, according to the ADL’s latest data. Virginia, a neighboring state, saw a 223 percent increase in 2023, a problem lawmakers have sought to address by applying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to hate crime investigations.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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