An entire Jewish community was the alleged target of anti-Semitic vandalism Wednesday morning, when they woke up to find their property and neighborhood damaged and spray-painted with an assortment of hateful words and symbols.
"[We are] saddened and outraged," said Howard Feinberg, a board member of the Rodfei Sholom Congregation, located near Northwest Military Drive and Huebner Road, according to mySA. "When we were finishing our morning prayers around 7 a.m., we became aware that in the neighborhood around our synagogue, there was a lot of graffiti of the anti-Semitic and racial nature."
Local police reported that at least 30 cars and homes were tagged with the anti-Semitic graffiti sometime overnight. In particular, a fence in the area had "KKK" written on it, and one SUV was seen with a window smashed out with the word "Jew" spray-painted down the side of the vehicle, according to CBS' San Antonio affiliate KENS 5. Going outside the anti-semitic trend, the sign outside the Rodfei Sholom Congregation allegedly had the word n----r emblazoned on the front. People in the nieghborhood also found graffitied swastikas among the vandalism.
"We see a lot in the Middle East and Europe sometimes we think it's been escaped here in the U.S.," said local resident Erick Matta.
The San Antonio Police Department is treating this incident as a hate crime. Authorities are investigating the incident but have no immediate leads on the individual or group responsible for the vandalism, according to Yahoo! News.
"There's only one remedy for hatred and that's love," Rabbi Arnold Scheinberg said. "That's going to override and overpower the hatred that we have seen."
