After Trump Victory, This Philadelphia Storefront Was Graffitied With Swastika
Image by twitter
A few hours after Donald Trump clinched his victory in the presidential contest — also the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht — anti-Semitic graffiti celebrating the leader appeared on a storefront in South Philadelphia.
The graffiti included expressions such as “Sieg Heil 2016,” a reference to the “Hail Victory” Nazi slogan, and “Trump,” with the “T” replaced with a swastika. The hateful slogans were scrawled on the abandoned Meglio Furs shop, located at the cross of Broad and Wharton Streets. Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass” was a major pogrom against Jewish businesses in Nazi Germany.
According to Philadelphia Magazine, police were investigating the incident.
Caryn Kunkle, a neighborhood artist who gathered friends to cover the graffiti with paint, linked the incident to Trump’s victory, and a signaled a worry about further episodes.
“And, as Philly’s first taste of President Trump, someone has spray painted a swastika and the words ‘seig heil 2016’ on the front of the abandoned Meglio Furs shop window on Broad Street,” she wrote.
The local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League also strongly condemned the incident.
“We are horrified by the appearance of hate graffiti on a storefront in South Philadelphia,” Nancy K. Baron-Baer, head of the city chapter of the ADL, wrote in a press release after the news broke.
“Swastikas and the Nazi salute send a message of intolerance and hate to the entire community. The fact that today is the 78th anniversary of Kristallnacht adds another layer to this already sickening act,” she added.
Baron-Baer implied that anti-Semitism might be an ever larger concern with the advent of a Trump presidency.
“While we view this as an isolated incident, we cannot allow this behavior to become routine,” she wrote. “Everyone has a role to play in combating bigotry — we must advocate, educate and investigate until hate is no longer welcome in our society.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
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 during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
