Vandals spray paint swastikas on buildings in Pensacola

Vandals spray paint swastikas on buildings in Pensacola

Police in Pensacola are investigating the city’s sixth case of anti-Semitic vandalism in two weeks, according to local media reports.

Video footage sent to Pensacola TV station WEAR shows red swastikas painted on buildings on the southern end of Palafox Street over the weekend.

Pensacola police have not yet figured out who is responsible for the weekend vandalism or the other recent incidents.

Last week, someone threw two bricks with anti-Semitic messaging through windows at Temple Beth El, the oldest Jewish house of worship in Florida.

This brick with anti-Semitic messaging was thrown through a window at the Chabad Jewish Center in Pensacola July 17 — the first in a series of anti-Semitic incidents in less than two weeks.

Two visiting rabbis were preparing dinner at the center when one of the bricks crashed through the kitchen window, landing where one of the rabbis had been standing only moments earlier, according to the Post.

The rabbis rushed outside and saw someone run behind a building and then drive away, Mendel Danrow, the rabbi who runs the center, told the Post.

Danrow, however, has turned an action born of hate into a labor of love. Danrow already had plans to expand the community center and now he will use the brick thrown through the window as the first laid in the expansion.

“The brick that was thrown, which was intended to bring hate and negativity and division and so on, we will use that brick as the cornerstone,” Danow told the Post.

A similar incident happened July 17 at Pensacola Chabad Jewish Center, a Jewish community center, according to a report in the Washington Post. It was the first in the series of six such incidents, according to media reports.

Pensacola police have yet to make any arrests from any of the incidents.