Nineteen swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish community centre in US
search

The latest Jewish News

Read this week’s digital edition

Click Here

Nineteen swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish community centre in US

Nazi symbols painted onto building Northern Virginia JCC, as police search for the culprit who was caught on CCTV in the early hours of the morning

Swastikas painted on to the JCC
Swastikas painted on to the JCC

Some 19 swastikas were spray painted on the walls of a Jewish Community Centre in Virginia.

The vandalism was discovered on Saturday morning at the Jewish Community Centre of Northern Virginia, in Fairfax, Va.  Surveillance video shows a man wearing dark clothes spraying the building at about 4:30 a.m., Fairfax police told the Washington Post.

“As many of us recognise, these acts do not represent the community around the J or the community in Northern Virginia,” Fairfax JCC Executive Director Jeff Dannick and JCC Board President  David Yaffe, said in a statement.

“The J as a whole, and particularly through the focused efforts of our Committee for a Just and Caring Community, will continue to participate as a positive force in both the Jewish and wider communities,” they also said.

It is the second suspected hate crime against the Fairfax JCC in the last 18 months. In April 2017 “Hitler was right,” swastikas and the SS symbol were found spray-painted on the exterior of the JCC building. A nearby church also was vandalised. Dylan M. Mahone, 20, was arrested and charged with hate-related offenses in the incident.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, said in a tweet showing a photo of the vandalised JCC that “An insidious rise in hateful actions and anti-Semitism is happening in Virginia and across the country. We must meet it with fierce condemnation and an over-abundance of love and unity. We cannot allow hate to fester.”

Support your Jewish community. Support your Jewish News

Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.

For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.

Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.

You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.

100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...

Engaging

Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.

Celebrating

There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.

Pioneering

In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.

Campaigning

Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.

Easy access

In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.

Voice of our community to wider society

The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.

We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.

read more: