Kristi Reisch visited Beverly Pappas Park in Greece with her two children on Thursday when she spotted a swastika and the “KKK” symbol scrawled in black marker on the playground’s welcome sign.
His first reaction: “Horror”. His second: alert municipal authorities and members of the media.
“It makes me feel like nowhere is safe for marginalized communities,” she said. “It makes me fear for the messages that all people will receive when they see this sign.”
She discovered the symbols around the same time that the Biden administration released the nation’s first national strategy to combat anti-Semitismcalling on the government, law enforcement and schools to suppress hatred.
“It’s up to all of us to stop this,” President Joseph Biden said in a video announcement. “We say clearly and forcefully that anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred and violence have no place in America. Silence, silence is complicit.
The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in the United States last year was the highest since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking them in 1979. Jewish advocacy group counted 3,697 incidents nationwide in 2022, an increase of 36% from the previous year.
The tally, released in March, is yet another indication of rising anti-Semitism, a trend that has been reflected in American culture and sparked concern among Jewish communities.
More than half of the incidents recorded by the ADL were classified as harassment, but there were 111 incidents of assault. About a third of the cases were listed as vandalism, like what was discovered in a park in Greece.
Less than an hour after Reisch reported what she found, police were on the scene.
David Andreatta
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WXXI News
Greek Police Chief Michael Wood, who was at the scene, declined to comment, saying only that the incident was being taken seriously and was being investigated.
The arrival of the police was followed by a city employee who first attempted to remove the sign. After he was unable to do so, the symbols were erased, and by Friday they were barely noticeable.
Meredith Dragon, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, released a brief written statement.
“We are troubled by yet another incident in our community and we appreciate that Greek police are taking this seriously as they engage in a thorough investigation,” Dragon said.
David Andreatta
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WXXI News
The images obtained in Greece are the latest in a series of similar discoveries around Rochester in recent years.
Flyers directing people to a white supremacist website were distributed in Brighton and Pittsford. Racist graffiti painted on desk at Pittsford school. Swastikas and “KKK” were painted on the side of an apartment complex and church in Fairport.
Reisch praised the quick response to this question in Greece.
Whether the vandalism was orchestrated by a hate group or committed by young people who may not have been aware of the significance of their antics was also troubling to Reisch.
David Andreatta
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WXXI News
“If these were just dumb kids, quote unquote, oblivious to the atrocities being committed under the symbolism of the KKK and the swastika, that shows me it’s even more important that we provide education to our children, to the members of our community,” she said.
“When we don’t know what these symbols mean, we are much more likely to allow that symbolism to become normalized and dominant.”
