Hate speech

I doubt it’s lost on anyone that this appalling vandalism comes just a day after the anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks. Indeed, the “Al-Aqsa Flood” mentioned in the graffiti is a reference to the code name given by Hamas for those attacks. The inverted red triangles refer to videos that Hamas and other groups have put out on social media which show militants attacking soldiers. In the videos, the red triangles are used as arrows to indicate targets, and are similar to the vandalism scrawled on the Lake of the Isles west channel bridge.

Minneapolis can and should be better than this. Such ignorant, violent speech demeans our entire community, and I encourage all of you to stand in support of Temple Israel and our Jewish neighbors who were the targets of this hateful act. If you have information that might be relevant to the police investigation, please call 911. In addition, let’s all take a moment to reflect and resolve to do better. Nothing that anyone believes justifies attacking our Jewish neighbors, and our city needs to take a strong stand against violators. Minneapolis should never be a place for hate speech in any form.

As a Ward 7 resident and Jewish mother wrote me this morning:

“We all pray for an end to the Israel-Gaza conflict but we also need to focus on ensuring physical and psychological safety for Minneapolis residents.”