A car in Bristol, United Kingdom, was vandalized with graffiti of a swastika on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.
Neighbors reported on Monday the large bright yellow swastika on the hood of a car. The windshield was covered in paint as well. The police were notified.
The Bristol Post quoted one of the neighbors, Nick Bayne, who is identified as being Jewish, who said the incident “a sign that people are starting to feel empowered enough to do something like this.” He said, “It’s awful, it’s a gut punch. Me and my wife, who is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivor, feel anxious about this – it was right next door to where we live.”
Bayne, who lives across the street from where the car was parked, called it a display of selfishness and “a giant symbol of hate.” He noted that his wife was a grandchild of Holocaust survivors.
Yaakov Haguel, Vice-Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, responded to the incident saying that “anti-Semitism incitement does not take a break even on the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur. Anti-Semitic hate criminals know exactly when and where to target.”
Haguel thanked the local police “who took this matter seriously. But more must be done. Do not allow the perpetrators to be free to carry out their plot against Jewish communities here or anywhere in the world.”
According to the “Report on Worldwide Anti-Semitism” published by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, the 1,805 anti-Semitic recorded cases in the UK in 2019 constitute an increase of 7% compared to 2018.
Anti-Semitism is at its highest level since the Holocaust, Haguel told the Knesset in July, and the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is fueling anti-Semitic theories.
One in five of the British believe to some degree that Jews created the Coronavirus to collapse the economy for financial gain, according to research titled “Oxford Coronavirus Explanations, Attitudes, and Narratives Survey” that polled a representative sample of 2,500 English adults in May.