Anshe Emet, Chicago Synagogue And School, Hit With Anti-Semitic Graffiti (VIDEO)

Local Synagogue, School Hit With Anti-Semitic Graffiti

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A synagogue and school located in Chicago's North Side Lakeview neighborhood was vandalized overnight Tuesday with anti-Semitic hate graffiti including the words "Jews murder" and "Jews kill."

Bob Krakowsky, executive director of the synagogue, told the Chicago Tribune that he was "extremely troubled" by the incident. Surveillance video of the premises reportedly appears to show an individual vandalizing the property between 12:45 a.m. and 1 a.m. Krakowsky is hopeful that person will come forward.

Other words painted on the synagogue included "Save PAL," according to CBS Chicago.

"It's utterly shocking to come to a building filled with children, a building that is filled with a community of faith, and to see the ugliness and pure abject anti-Semitism just scrawled on the building," Anshe Emet Senior Rabbi Michael Siegel added to the Tribune.

Dan Elbaum, Chicago director of the American Jewish Committee, described the incident in a statement reported by the Sun-Times as "another sad reminder of the persistence of anti-Semitism" at a particularly troubling moment, not only on the heels of the murder of four individuals at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France, last week, but also just more than a week before the start of Passover.

The Jewish United Fund issued a statement Wednesday afternoon that those who painted the graffiti on the synagogue "also scrawled their message of hate on the hearts of all Chicagoans who take pride in our city's openness and diversity."

No one is in custody in the vandalism incident as of Wednesday afternoon, while police continue their investigation.

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