Anti-Semitic Graffiti Painted On Colorado Springs Synagogue

Image by facebook

By JTA August 6, 2017

(JTA) — Anti-Semitic messages and a swastika were spray-painted on the building and sign of a synagogue in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The messages were discovered on Friday morning at the Temple Beit Torah. In addition to the synagogue, nearby cars, homes and buildings also were vandalized, the Colorado Spring Gazette reported.

In addition to a swastika, the words “sig heil,” a misspelling of the Nazi salute sieg heil, was painted on the synagogue’s sign, according to the report.

“I’m deeply saddened, and yet I’m not surprised,” the temple’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Steven Kaye, told the Gazette.

“America has come so far in diversity and including people, but in the last year, we’ve seen a lot of hate talk about people who don’t fit what they think Americans should look like,” he said.

There has been a significant increase in anti-Semitic acts in Colorado in the past two years, the local office of the Anti-Defamation League told the newspaper. An unnamed spokesman said that there were 18 acts of anti-Semitism in the area in 2015, and 45 last year.

In June, two men were caught on surveillance video putting a sticker with an anti-Israel message on the door the Chabad Lubavitch of Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs. The message read “Fight terror, nuke Israel.” One of the men took a photo of the sign before leaving the scene.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO