A tall, thin man wearing a hood and a mask was caught on a security camera plastering Nazi stickers on a Jewish museum in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, The Associated Press reported Thursday. The incident occurred early Tuesday morning, according to the news agency.
The man drove a scooter to the Alaska Jewish Museum, placed one sticker on the door and jumped to place three more symbols of hate on windows before driving off, Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, the president of the museum’s board of directors, said of what their video cameras showed happening at 2:00 a.m. Tuesday.
About 45 minutes later, another sticker was placed on the main entrance door to gay bar in downtown Anchorage, according to AP.
Each white sticker was emblazoned with a black swastika. Written above and below the swastika are the words, “WE ARE EVERYWHERE.”
“There is no place for hate in our community,” Anchorage police said in a statement asking for the public’s help in identifying those responsible.
“What that sticker symbolizes is hate,” Anchorage police spokesperson MJ Thim told The Associated Press. “And we’re not going to stand for it, and there’s no place for it. And we’re going to investigate it and figure out what this is all about.”
Spokesperson Chloe Martin said the Anchorage FBI office is in regular contact with Anchorage police.
Rabbi Greenberg, commenting on the incident, said, “Jewish people have 4,000 years’ experience of persecution.”
He called the person on the scooter, a man believed to be in his late 20s or 30s, a coward whose only purpose was to create fear.
“He is dealing with the wrong people. We are not the people that fear,” said Rabbi Greenberg, who added the FBI and police indicated it was not a serious or organized threat.
Police asking for the public’s help to find the person who did it and “to make a statement that the entire community us united, that such things cannot happen in this community,” he added.
The incident in Alaska follows a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in the US.
On Sunday, a pro-Israel rally held outside of Chicago was crashed by a mob of Arab protesters who attacked the pro-Israel demonstration and called for the slaughter of Jews.
The incident followed a series of attacks on local Jews, including an assault on two Jewish teens by an angry mob Saturday night.
On Thursday, a Jewish man was brutally attacked in Times Square by pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators.
Last Tuesday, thousands of protestors scuffled during parallel demonstrations in New York City, with police in Manhattan erecting metal barricades between the two groups.
Last week, Arabs violently attacked Jews at a restaurant in Los Angeles, according to reports on social media.
On Monday, President Joe Biden condemned the anti-Semitic attacks which have been perpetrated across the United States over the past two weeks.
A day later, a group of Republican senators introduced a resolution condemning hatred and violence against Jews, denouncing anti-Israel rhetoric from elected officials and the media, and reaffirming that Jews must be treated with dignity and respect.