Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Anti-Semitic Note With Yellow Star of David Left on Maryland Couple’s Car

(JTA) — A couple in Maryland said they found an anti-Semitic note including a drawing of a Nazi yellow Star of David with the word “Jude” written in it.

The note was left on their car days after they hung a Black Lives Matter flag on the window of their home, BuzzFeed reported Sunday, a day after the note was left for the couple. The note refers to the movement.

Sonya and Mikey Franklin, who moved to the U.S. from London, also reported that their home in Rockville was vandalized with toilet paper and eggs. Franklin posted a copy of the letter on Twitter.

This note was left on my car this morning in Rockville, MD because I’m Jewish and I support #blacklivesmatter. Yes, that’s a yellow star. pic.twitter.com/5Jd4gZfvG8

— Mikey Franklin (@mikeyfranklin) January 7, 2017

A Rockville Police Department spokesman told BuzzFeed that the incident is classified as a “possible hate crime and will be investigated as such,” though the detective interviewed said he did not know what “Jude” meant.

The couple had been forced by their condo association to remove the Black Lives Matter sign on Friday, a day before the attack, though a sign for the movement remained visible in their car.

Franklin later tweeted that he did not believe the police were taking him seriously. “What should I do about this? I’m literally being gaslit by the police after reporting an antisemitic hate crime,” he tweeted.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.