Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on March 19, 2015

Vandals visited the B'Nai Sephardim Synagogue in the dark of night and defaced its walls with threatening and hateful graffiti.

Discovered Tuesday morning, the menacing messages, spray-painted in red, ranged from "I'm watching you" to "F--- the Jews!!"

"It's terrible for the community, the damage is done," said Hava Holzhauer, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League. "It's not only damage to what is a holy physical structure, but it's also the emotional damage that it causes for the community."

About a half-dozen markings defiled the walls of a current expansion project at the synagogue at 3670 Stirling Road. A discarded spray-paint can was found on site.

Rabbi Yehuda Benhamu said the graffiti carried an unfortunate and hurtful sting.

"Unfortunately, I don't know why [they did it]," Benhamu told WPLG-Ch. 10. "If you have a problem with the community or the Jewish people, come sit down and we'll talk."

The vandals left their marks "666" and "Be Carefull!" little more than two weeks before Passover, an eight-day holiday commemorating the Jews' liberation from slavery in Egypt.

Founded in 1970 in North Miami Beach, the synagogue has made its home at its present sanctuary in Hollywood since May 1999.

It is "the premier Sephardic congregation in Broward County" and serves more than 700 families, according to the synagogue's web site.

Sephardim, plural for Sephardic, are Jews who hail from Arab countries, Spain or North Africa.

See the original post:

Vandals target Hollywood synagogue with anti-Semitic graffiti

Category: Synagogue
Tags: