Chicago Police have made an arrest following repeated antisemitic attacks that not only include swastikas on buildings but in one case included a physical beating in the West Rogers Park Jewish community.
This past weekend — just on the heels of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marked last Thursday — swastikas were spray-painted on the back wall of the F.R.E.E. Russian-Jewish Community Synagogue near Devon Avenue and Richmond Street, and on the Hanna Sacks Bais Yaakov girls’ school.
The perpetrator at F.R.E.E. also “verbally assaulted a man” before fleeing, according to WGN-9.
In addition, windows were smashed in three separate incidents, according to reports received by the Concerned Citizens League. Among the targets was the Tel Aviv Bakery and the Kol Tuv Kosher Supermarket, as well as a synagogue near Devon Avenue and Monticello Avenue, according to Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Levi Notik, who thanked city police and law enforcement “for dealing with this so swiftly.
“We need to increase in more good deeds and acts of kindness to overcome this dark hatred,” the rabbi wrote.
“These incidents are particularly upsetting as they come mere days after Holocaust Remembrance Day and in light of a worrying increase in antisemitism across the nation,” said 50th Ward Alderwoman Debra Silverstein in a statement posted by WGN-9.
“I want to assure everyone that the City of Chicago stands firmly with the Jewish community. The police are taking these incidents very seriously, as am I and all the City leadership. Hate has no place in this neighborhood, and bigotry will not be tolerated. . . . I am as upset as you are by this news. The 50th Ward is a safe and caring neighborhood, and these incidents are not in line with our values.”