Courtesy of Anti-Defamation League.
The Bethesda community came together after finding antisemitic vandalism on Bethesda Elementary School property on the morning of Aug. 11.
Montgomery County Police 2nd District officers were dispatched to the elementary school around 7:15 a.m. after a report of vandalism, and they continue to investigate.
MCPD said unknown suspects spray-painted anti-Israel phrases over the parking lot area and a nearby building on Del Ray Avenue. The vandalism was first noticed during a weekly farmers market, according to Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
“It is despicable and the context for it is incredibly disturbing,” Franklin Siegel said. “This is an elementary school property frequented by parents and children at the site of a farmers market … in a neighborhood with a significant Jewish population.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington issued a statement condemning the vandalism.
“As children and families were trying to enjoy a farmer’s market, they were instead witnesses to abhorrent antisemitic messages,” the statement read. “Ahead of the new school year, it is critical that we make clear that this type of hate speech has no place here.”
The spray-painted vandalism reads “Israel rapes kids,” “Free Gaza now” and “Gaza is starving,” which Franklin Siegel said is one of the worst cases of antisemitic vandalism she has seen due to the language’s graphic nature.
“When you see something like that, it is very clear that this is not just political speech,” Franklin Siegel said. “This is vandalism targeted at a specific site that is intended to shock.”
“We must condemn this vile and disgusting behavior, which does nothing to bring about peace and instead sows more hatred,” Meredith Weisel, regional director of the ADL’s Washington, D.C., office, wrote in a statement posted on X on Aug. 11.
Franklin Siegel echoed the sentiment, saying that vandalizing elementary school property in the United States will not make a difference in the Middle East.
“All of this manifestation of hatred does nothing for Israelis or Gazans,” she said. “It is intended to harm and divide, and Jewish people living in Montgomery County should not be subjected to aggressive messaging and attacks because Israel is at war.”
Jonathan Zimmerman, a parent whose three children attended Bethesda Elementary School, also echoed this sentiment.
“It is sad and scary to see this happen so close to home. There has been too much suffering on both sides of this war and we all want it to stop, but vandalism and lies and antisemitism are not the answer,” Zimmerman said in a statement emailed to the Washington Jewish Week.
Community members and members of Bethesda Urban Partnership helped remove the vandalism, according to an MCPD post to X on Aug. 11.
“To see young, elementary school-aged children on their hands and knees scrubbing off this language, it’s disturbing,” Franklin Siegel said, adding that she is grateful for the community support. “I think that the way the community came together was meaningful. First of all, [the Montgomery County Public Schools] superintendent, council president, the police department, everybody jumped into action quickly to ensure that the graffiti was removed.”
“The parents and children who did clean-up received thanks from tons of passersby who appreciated what they were doing. I think all of that is a statement about our community — it was a moment where hatred was answered with decency and sensitivity, not allowing our community to literally be defaced [and] allowing divisiveness to rule,” Franklin Siegel said.
The Federation’s statement thanked MCPD, local community members and leaders for promptly cleaning up the vandalism.
This act of vandalism is part of an uptick in antisemitic incidents in Montgomery County that predates the Israel-Hamas war. MCPS saw a 261% increase in antisemitic incidents from 2021 to 2022, and Maryland experienced a 211% increase in 2023, making it the state with the seventh-highest number of antisemitic incidents reported that year, according to the ADL.
Bethesda is no stranger to the upward trend. Bethesda Trolley Trail, a recreational trail, was vandalized in August and November 2022 with white supremacist language and spray-painted swastikas and hangmen. In December 2022, vandalism reading “Jews not welcome” was spray-painted on a sign outside of Walt Whitman High School.
Franklin Siegel said she and other JCRC staff are on high alert for the start of the 2024-’25 school year, during which she fears the influx of antisemitic incidents will “pick up right where it left off” from the spring.
“We people of goodwill just need to keep emphasizing that there needs to be a zero-tolerance policy for hatred in our schools,” Franklin Siegel said.
