On May 6, Washington Jewish Week reported antisemitic vandalism found at a public elementary school in Montgomery County — a trend the Jewish community knows all too well.
In the May 6-12, 1982, issue of The Jewish Week, the vandalism was even closer to home.
In an article titled “Temple Shalom, Bnai Shalom victims of anti-Semitic acts,” author Janice L. Kaplan wrote, “’Long Live Long Live Islam’ was spraypainted on the Soviet Jewry sign at Temple Beth Shalom in Chevy Chase.”
“One day later, Annette Bozinko, the secretary at Bnai Shalom Congregation in Olney, found a White Power poster on the front door of the synagogue when she arrived at work,” wrote Kaplan.
Back-to-back antisemitic acts are not a new phenomenon. A couple of weeks ago, swastikas were found at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. While the two recent incidents involved different communities, they follow a trend of increased antisemitic activity in the United States.
In another parallel, a Jewish day school in Baltimore was evacuated and locked down in March due to a phoned-in bomb threat.
In the 1982 article, Kaplan added, “Also, on Saturday morning, March 27, Rabbi Philip Pohl, religious leader of the congregation, received a phone call at his home from a caller who telephoned to invite him to a Hitler rally. The next day, a similar message was left on the telephone recording machine at the congregation.”
These eerily similar acts happened more than 40 years apart.
“The two incidents which occurred this week added to a trend of such incidents in the Greater Washington area,” wrote Kaplan.
