
Anonymous perpetrators spray-painted a Colorado synagogue with anti-Semitic graffiti marking Adolf Hitler's birthday, the JTA news agency reported.
The walls and door of Temple Beit Torah in Colorado Springs was discovered on the morning of April 20 with swastikas and "Happy 4:20" (the date of Hitler's birth).
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April 20 is also the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in the state. Police are calling the attack "criminal mischief," according to the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Judith Barthel, a board member at Temple Beit Torah, told the Gazette that the incident is “horrifying” and “sad.”
Vandalism in Israel
Earlier on Monday it was reported that unidentified assailants vandalized a heritage site commemorating fallen IDF soldiers on Givat Hatachmosht (Ammunition Hill) in Jerusalem overnight Monday, spraying hate slogans against Zionism and Jews.
One of the graffiti slogans sprayed at the site praised German poet Guenter Grass.
Last week, the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry presented its annual global anti-Semitism report for 2011.
The report noted an increase in cases involving harassments and violence against Jews worldwide, singling out western Europe, Australia and Canada as three of the places most affected by the trend.
The report found that France held the dubious record for most hate crimes against Jews in 2011 – 114.
The UK was second, with 105 reported cases; followed by Canada, with 68. Australia saw 30 reported cases of hate crimes against Jews, followed by Ukraine (16), Russia (15) the United States (13), Lithuania (6), Argentina (5), Switzerland (5), South Africa (3) and Tunisia, which noted only one reported case.
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