Residents are fed up with persistent anti-Semitic graffiti at Oakland’s Lake Merritt

OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — Residents say enough is enough after anti-Semitic graffiti was discovered at Lake Merritt in Oakland.

This comes a year after a massive menorah was destroyed.

“It was really shocking, really hateful things were said. I can’t. I don’t even want to,” said Zoe Levine of the Jewish Alliance of Oakland.

It began after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

That of graffiti is that of the latest incidents. It appeared on the last night of Hanukkah, right next to a huge Menorah. Last year it was vandalized and thrown into the lake.

“At first it was my path walking with my kids around the lake, and just seeing the pure vitriol was just too much. And that’s what motivated me to start doing some of the removal on my own ” Levine said.

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Levine takes matters into his own hands, but quickly realizes… “It was like drinking from a fire hose. You know, there was so much of it every day. More and more completely out of control, that I somehow had to so get more. help.”

“This is really just the latest example of the ongoing and unresolved anti-Semitism crisis we are seeing in Oakland,” said Jonathan Mintzer, policy director. & Government Affairs at the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council.

“JCRC surveys that we conduct with professional researchers show that after October 7, 60 percent of Jews in the Bay Area feel less safe than before, and more than a third have directly experienced or witnessed violence. “anti-Semitism,” Mintzer said.

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The hatred hits home directly at Mintzer, who lives in Oakland and travels these paths.

“It is time for our leaders to truly speak out against this ongoing hatred, take corrective action, and truly dedicate themselves to supporting the Jewish community during this difficult time,” he said.

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He calls on the city’s newly elected leaders to take action.

“It would be very helpful to hear the new mayor and the new district attorney here in Alameda say that anti-Semitism and all its forms are hateful and have no place here in the era of Oakland and County ‘Alameda,’” Mintzer said.