As of 10am today, SPU's Graffiti Rangers team have painted over the antisemitic graffiti on 16th Ave. SPU stands in support of our Jewish community members and the @JFSSeattle. We're proud to help make #Seattle a beautiful and inclusive home for us all. pic.twitter.com/7Ds5NF0AwZ

— Seattle Public Utilities (@SeattleSPU) February 1, 2022

City officials are condemning graffiti targeting Capitol Hill’s Jewish Family Service.

The large, spray painted message appeared across from the JFS offices after a Seattle Times op-ed on the rise in anti-Semitic hate from its CEO and just days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“As I wrote to one friend, Jews are a remnant of a remnant. The entire state of Israel is smaller than Lake Michigan. I cannot visit my family in Eastern Europe. The graves are not there any longer, let alone the people,” Rabbi Will Berkovitz wrote in the January 21st essay. “It makes me wonder if the non-Jewish community understands how personal these attacks are for some of us. The fear is real. The violence is real. And the silence speaks volumes.”

Police are investigating the vandalism on the E Madison at 16th Ave 7-11 that was first reported on Sunday, January 30th and believed to target Berkovitz and JFS. Temple De Hirsch Sinai is also just up the street from the location.

The message was quickly covered up with a layer of paint and the wall was later completely covered with a visit from the Seattle Public Utilities Graffiti Rangers.

“We will not tolerate anti-Semitism in Seattle – period,” Mayor Bruce Harrell said. “This disgusting act of vandalism is a sad reminder that hate can target our communities at any time and in any form. We must all speak out and reject this vile attack loudly and unambiguously.”

Harrell said he would also be “convening a call with Jewish leaders to reiterate Seattle’s support for the Jewish community.”

Seattle City Council president Debora Juarez also issued a statement condemning the vandalism.

The E Madison incident follows an act of MLK Day vandalism that targeted a mural of the civil rights leader in the Central District.

In 2012, the more than 120-year-old Jewish Family Service celebrated the opening of its new 19,000-square-foot building at 16th and Pike. JFS’s range of programs include addiction counseling, refugee assistance, and food bank services. The building’s design incorporates a quote from Hillel the Elder:  If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when I am for myself, what am I? — If not now, when?

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