Archive: Painted swastikas
Archive: Painted swastikasGershon Elinson/Flash90

A Beverly Hills, California sidewalk was defaced with a pro-Nazi statement and a swastika this week.

The graffiti of a swastika and the phrase in capital letters “Nazi pride” scrawled in pink chalk was discovered on July 14.

A photo of the graffiti was posted to Twitter by the Stopantisemitism.org organization. They said that the vandalism occurred at the corner of Gregory Way and S Bedford Street.

“Just 80 years since the onset of the Holocaust we are forced to see daily reminders of how many still hate us,” Stopantisemitism Executive Director Liora Red told the Jewish Journal. “Until harsher prison sentencing starts happening for offenders of these types of acts, they’re not going to stop.”

“Beyond the sheer vulgarity of such vile graffiti, there is a fundamental cowardice to those who would scrawl a swastika on a sidewalk,” American Jewish Committee Los Angeles Regional Director Richard S. Hirschhaut said in a statement to the Journal.

“Fortunately, just like their impact in Los Angeles, this too is easily erased,” he added.

The incident is the latest episode in a significant increase in neo-Nazi vandalism experienced across the United States and in California this year.

Recently, a hate crime investigation was launched in Ukiah, California after two pieces of public artwork were defaced in late June with swastikas and Nazi SS bolts. One of the pieces was a mosaic by Jewish artist Elizabeth Raybee featuring an image of her father, a Holocaust survivor.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)