After Trump Victory, This Philadelphia Storefront Was Graffitied With Swastika
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
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
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
