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Indiana Synagogue Tagged in Anti-Semitic Imagery, Swastika Included

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Carmel police are investigating after anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered over the weekend at a Hamilton County synagogue, Indystar reports.

 

According to the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, the vandalism took place overnight at Congregation Shaarey Tefilla in the 3000 block of West 116th Street.

 

On Sunday morning, the crime scene was left untouched, just with the addition of police tape. The graffiti showed a chilling pair of Nazi flags and iron crosses and was spray painted on two walls of a brick shed that surrounds the property’s dumpster, according to Indystar.

 

On the grass in front of one of the Nazi flags, there are apparent burn marks in two places, and there’s a black burn mark that appears to be on some of the graffiti as well, according to Indystar.

 

“We are deeply disappointed in the horrific vandalism that occurred at our Congregation,” Shaarey Tefilla Rabbi Benjamin Sendrow said in a statement. “Intolerance, hatred, and violent acts against Jews are significant realities today. The response to this heinous act affirms that America is collectively outraged at these hateful acts in our neighborhoods.”

 

While a tarp covered up one of the Nazi flags, congregant Eli Keren made sure the other, the one that was also accompanied by iron crosses, remained uncovered so all the public could see.

 

He was taking a page out of the end of the Holocaust, when some towns notoriously forced its citizens to walk through the concentration camps to see what they had allowed to happen right in their own backyards. He said he pulled the tarp down Sunday so that people could see what happened, and understand the types of emotions that come up when seeing such ugly and hateful imagery.

 

“For me to see this, it kind of hits home. I’m first generation after the Holocaust. My father’s family is from Poland. My mother’s family is from Hungary. And 90 percent of our family went up in smoke just under this particular flag in (concentration camps) and this kind of hate and bigotry,” he explained.

 

“The people who did this probably don’t even know what this represents. I would welcome them and their families and the people who fed them this hate to come here and speak with us. Understand who we are and what we are, and maybe they’ll stop hating us so much.”

 

His wife, Tamar Keren, said that the couple came to Carmel from Israel about two years ago, and this is the first time she has come face to face with anti-Semitism.

 

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