The city physically removed the hateful message from the sidewalk near the Chabad of Hallandale Beach on Friday, but the psychological damage is done.
Someone scrawled “Hitler was right” on the concrete along Hallandale Beach Boulevard.
“It strikes me as something that comes from a place of lack of education, lack of proper guidance, lack of light and it’s very easy today with Whatsapp and social media to spread hatred,” said Rabbi Raphael Tennenhaus, the son of Holocaust survivors.
There’s been an explosion of hatred spreading every day since the Hamas attacks of October 7th, from a man slashing a “Stand With Israel” banner to multiple instances of people ripping down flyers of the hostages, often using the war in Gaza as a pretext for not just anti-Israel comments, but outright antisemitic messages.
Rabbi Tennenhaus said his seminary students found the graffiti, and considers this a teaching moment.
“You don’t get far with chasing away darkness with brooms and sticks, a wise man once said, to defeat darkness, light a candle, add light,” Tennenhaus said.
Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Michelle Lazarow just returned from a charity mission to Israel a couple of weeks ago. She saw, firsthand, where Hamas terrorists slaughtered and raped hundreds of civilians, so seeing the sidewalk defaced with hate in her hometown hits harder.
“It’s hateful, it’s hurtful, it’s a sign of aggression, and it’s gonna be treated as such,” Lazarow said. “We’re not a fearful community, we’re not a weak community, especially in Hallandale Beach, we’re going to stand strong, we’re gonna be together, we’re gonna be a community, we’re gonna stand against that.”
Rabbi Tennenhaus said the upcoming Passover holiday has a message fit for these times.
“In every generation they stand up to destroy us, but in every generation we survive, the ancient Greeks are not here, the ancient Syrians are not here, the ancient Romans are not here,” he said, pointing out that the Jewish people are still thriving.
Tennenhaus said his community will, in response to the antisemitic graffiti, redouble its charitable efforts.
Hallandale Beach Police are investigating the incident.