‘Baby killer’: Vandals target Jewish Dallas City Council member’s home
‘Folks, you’re going to need to stop sitting on the sidelines thinking everything will be ok,’ Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn said. ‘Things are not ok.’

The display outside Dallas City Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn’s home. Image by screenshot/Twitter
A pile of fake, bloodstained infant body bags formed the centerpiece of a jarring act of vandalism outside a Jewish Dallas city councilmember’s home over the weekend.
The councilmember, Cara Mendelsohn, posted on X photos of the display, which she said she discovered Saturday. The words “baby killer” were spray painted several times on a fence surrounding her property, as were several inverted red triangles that some say is a symbol of violent Palestinian resistance.
“Super Bowl ad showing hateful graffiti at a Jewish home – Do you wonder if this really happens?” she posted Sunday during the game. “I’m a Jewish elected official in Dallas and yesterday my home was defaced with hateful language and red triangles representing Palestine.”
🟦 Super Bowl ad showing hateful graffiti at a Jewish home – Do you wonder if this really happens?
I'm a Jewish elected official in Dallas and yesterday my home was defaced with hateful language and red triangles representing Palestine. It included a disgusting pile of rocks and… https://t.co/RJFrJho2Ti pic.twitter.com/EVUmRJwXu3
— Cara Mendelsohn 🟦 (@caraathome) February 11, 2024
Mendelsohn, who was president of the board of Dallas’ Jewish Family Service before she was elected to represent Far North Dallas in 2019, told the Dallas Morning News it was not the first time she felt targeted as a Jewish elected official since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Protesters held a small ceasefire rally outside her home in January, and she told the Morning News that she and her staffers had received death threats in recent months.
”I have tried to keep it out of the media, with consideration for my family. However, it has risen to a level that it is important for the community to understand the pervasiveness of these actions, in Dallas and across the world,” Mendelsohn said.
Mendelsohn’s office did not return a request for comment Monday.
In the ad for Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, first broadcast during the 2023 Super Bowl, a Jewish mother and daughter leaving their home in the morning find that it has been defaced with a swastika overnight. When the mother returns home, she finds that the neighbor has painted over it.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
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.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 3
Fast Forward How Coke’s Passover recipe sparked an antisemitic conspiracy theory
- 4
Politics Meet America’s potential first Jewish second family: Josh Shapiro, Lori, and their 4 kids
In Case You Missed It
-
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
-
Opinion This Nazi-era story shows why Trump won’t fix a terrifying deportation mistake
-
Opinion I operate a small Judaica business. Trump’s tariffs are going to squelch Jewish innovation.
-
Fast Forward Language apps are putting Hebrew school in teens’ back pockets. But do they work?
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
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.