The anti-Semitic phrase “The Jew is Guilty” has been showing up in neon spray paint up and down the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles county in recent days.
The offensive statement has been discovered painted onto benches and pathways from Will Rogers State Park all the way south into Venice during the last month, reported CBS Lost Angeles.
Resident Celia Grail said she was “just shocked but also disgusted.”
Her husband Gabriel Lerner was equally appalled. “I am especially offended because we are Jewish. It’s scary.”
There were also other anti-Semitic phrases painted in the same style and bright colors along the pathways.
Public works crews have been cleaning up and covering up the defacement but new graffiti shows up.
Stand with Us CEO Roz Rothstein told CBS that it’s not enough for the city to simply clean up the graffiti. She wants city leaders to speak out about the historic dangers of scapegoating Jews and where that can lead.
She is asking city leadership to “make a statement about how wrong and how evil and how bad this is.”
“We’re seeing so much division now, and so why not during this division… target Jewish or target Asian groups. It is absolutely dangerous and we cannot take it for granted, not even a little bit,” she said.
In late April, a Jewish resident of Los Angeles first discovered the anti-Semitic phrase painted on the sidewalk of the Abbott Kinney area of Venice Beach and took it upon himself to remove it.