Police step up patrols after antisemitic graffiti scrawled in Squirrel Hill

Pittsburgh police said Tuesday they are increasing patrols in Squirrel Hill following the second incident in under a week of antisemitic vandalism appearing in the neighborhood with the city’s largest Jewish population.

Police received reports Tuesday morning of graffiti scrawled on the sidewalks at a parklet in the Summerset at Frick housing development, police spokeswoman Cara Cruz said. Several tires on nearby cars also were slashed.

“There is blood on our hand,” one piece of graffiti read. “Take your money somewhere else,” said another. Another contained profanity, and another said “Death 2 America.”

Cruz said police “are investigating, working to identify a suspect or suspects, as well as having the graffiti removed.”

U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, D-Swissvale, condemned the graffiti. Squirrel Hill is part of her congressional district.

“The vandalism and antisemitic targeting of a Jewish community member’s property … as we commemorate five years since the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is completely unacceptable and wrong,” Lee said. “I condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms. I will continue doing everything in my power to fight back against hate and ensure our Jewish community feels safe and protected.”

Edgewood Councilwoman Bhavini Patel, who recently announced a spring primary challenge to Lee, also released a statement, saying she was “deeply saddened and disheartened” about the graffiti.

“The parklet was defaced with hateful graffiti that promoted antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-American sentiments, as well as tires being slashed,” she said. “This type of behavior has no place in our community, and it undermines the principles of respect, tolerance, and open dialogue that we hold dear in our democratic society. I condemn it in the strongest terms.”

Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh spokesman Adam Hertzman said the recent vandalism, among other forms of antisemitism, has “suddenly overwhelmed our beloved Jewish community.

“We at the Jewish federation are angered and sickened by these repeated attacks and exhausted by the escalating wave of antisemitism in a community that previously experienced the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history,” Hertzman said. “We again condemn hate speech of any form, which has no place anywhere in Pittsburgh and no place in the world.”

“As an organization on the front lines, working together with many other religious organizations, minority groups and other nonprofits to combat this hatred, we feel our community’s increasing alarm and fear,” he added. “We cannot normalize or become inured to the proliferation of such heinous acts.”

As of last week, 218 antisemitic incidents were reported to the federation in Pittsburgh this year to date, nearly doubling last year’s total of 122, officials said. More than 700 incidents were monitored since Oct. 7 nationwide by Secure Community Network, a Jewish security group.

Pro-Palestine graffiti was found last week at multiple Squirrel Hill locations, including a wall outside Allderdice High School and on yard signs near a Jewish private school.

Officials at that time said they didn’t know who spray-painted “Free Palestine” on a brick wall at Allderdice or changed a yard sign reading “I Stand With Israel” to “I Stand With Gaza” at a Beechwood Boulevard home near Community Day School, a private K-8 Jewish school on Forward Avenue.

Shawn Brokos, director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, called the vandalism “a timely and coordinated effort” that targeted Squirrel Hill Jews one day before the five-year commemoration of the Oct. 27, 2018, mass shooting at Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha synagogue, which killed 11 Jewish worshippers.

She said the federation has deemed the vandalism an act of antisemitism.

“The messages were targeted in Jewish area, seemingly blaming Jews for the actions of a foreign government. … I think the message by the vandals is very clear,” Brokos said.

Christine Mohamed, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter in Pittsburgh, disagreed.

“I understand ‘Free Palestine,’ to the Jewish community, maybe seems antisemitic,” Mohamed said. “I see it as a political statement.”

Last week, CAIR reported an uptick in Islamophobic incidents in the United States are since the initial Hamas attacks on Israel.

There have been 774 complaints of Islamophobia made to CAIR since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, which is the highest number they’ve seen in eight years, the group said on its website.