(JEWISH GROUP) Philadelphia Jewish museum won't re-hang Israeli flag now after it was vandalized twice in a week

For the second time in just over a week, Philadelphia’s Jewish museum was targeted with red paint splattered across a large Israeli flag that hangs on the building’s facade. It’s the latest in a string of attacks on Jewish cultural institutions.

Philadelphia police confirmed they are investigating both incidents at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, which sits at the corner of South Independence Mall East and Market Street.

In recent months, Jewish cultural institutions from Portland to Paris have faced similar vandalism. The Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland discovered blue swastikas sprayed across its doors in late July. In New York, a man in Greenwich Village scrawled “Gaza” on a Jewish art museum in late May. And in Paris, green paint was splashed across the Holocaust memorial and several synagogues also in May. Last summer, vandals left red paint and banners outside the Brooklyn Museum director’s home, accusing her and other Jewish officials of being “Zionists.”

Such incidents reflect a shift since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel and ensuing war in Gaza, when antisemitic harassment and vandalism spiked in the United States and abroad. The Anti-Defamation League reported more than 9,000 antisemitic incidents nationwide last year, including 465 in Pennsylvania alone.

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