BROOKHAVEN, Ga. — Jewish and African American leaders are denouncing the latest antisemitic messaging in the metro Atlanta area.
Channel 2′s Tom Regan was in Brookhaven, where overnight Tuesday, someone spray-painted slurs on a townhouse building, a stop sign and a church sign.
The phrases scrawled on the surfaces included “Jews kill blacks” and “Jews enslave black lives.”
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“This has really created a sort of psychological terrorism for the Jewish community,” American Jewish Committee Regional Director Dov Wilker said.
Wilker said hate messages and behavior against Jewish people have been on the rise across Georgia and the nation.
“We have had banners in California, Jacksonville. Flyers in Carroll County,” Wilker said.
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Wilker said his organization has also received numerous complaints of antisemitic behavior in metro Atlanta schools.
“Every school district in metro Atlanta has had incidents of antisemitism in the last 12 months. There have been instances where students have said ‘Heil Hitler’ and raised their arms in a Nazi salute at other students,” Wilker said.
The state president of the NAACP says antisemitic messages and behavior in any form is deplorable.
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“We will continue to call out racist, xenophobic, and antisemitic statements in the strongest terms,” Atlanta NAACP President Gerald Griggs said.
The Anti-Defamation League Southeast said antisemitic incidents in Georgia last year increased 133% compared to 2020.
Nationwide, antisemitic incidents reached an all-time high of 2,717 in 2020. That includes incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism reported to the ADL.
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