Two cars were scratched with anti-Semitic graffiti during a spate of vandalism at U.C. Davis during the university’s homecoming weekend.
U.C. Davis police said that at 3 a.m. Oct. 10, an individual vandalized cars parked in student apartment parking lots. The suspect slashed the tires of eight cars and scratched the surfaces of five cars, according to police. Two of those cars reportedly were scratched with anti-Semitic phrases and symbols, including one with a swastika and the words “Fuck Jews.” The cars did not belong to Jewish students, according to U.C. Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi.
“I absolutely condemn anti-Semitism in any display,” Katehi said in a statement. “We condemn all hate crimes and will see that the responsible party or parties, once identified, are held accountable.”
“It doesn’t seem like someone was specifically targeting the Jewish community; they were just trying to incite hate,” said Julia Reifkind, a U.C. Davis senior and president of the campus group Aggies for Israel. “At the same time, any sort of symbolism denoting any sort of hate to any group is scary and feels personal.”
Reifkind said school administrators first alerted the campus via email that religious slurs were scratched onto the cars; on Oct. 12, they identified the graffiti as specifically anti-Semitic. Meeting with campus administrators on Oct. 13, Reifkind said she was told that police are making progress in their investigation; they have described the suspect as a white man with dark hair in his mid-20s, about 5-foot-9 and weighing 150 pounds.
“We are concerned,” said Nancy Appel, S.F.-based associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Central Pacific Region. “Any time there is such an expression of hatred against Jews, that’s an act of hate against the community.”
In January, two red swastikas were found spray-painted on the wall of a historically Jewish fraternity at U.C. Davis just after the student senate voted in support of divestment from Israel.
“What happened at U.C. Davis is incredibly frightening and alarming,” said Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a U.C. Santa Cruz lecturer and co-founder and director of the Amcha Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to monitoring and addressing anti-Semitism on college campuses. “We applaud Chancellor Katehi for swiftly condemning this most recent anti-Semitic act at U.C. Davis and calling for a welcoming, tolerant and safe community. To those of us monitoring this closely, it is clear the wave of anti-Semitism that has haunted U.C.’s Jewish students over the past few years is only escalating and must be addressed.”
U.C. Davis sociology professor Diane Wolf, the director of the school’s Jewish studies program, strongly condemned the vandalism, calling it “unacceptable and horrendous.” But she said that U.C. Davis is a welcoming place for its “approximately 3,000 Jewish students” (out of an enrollment of about 35,000) and that she has not heard Jewish students expressing worries about their safety.
“There seems to be an impression that U.C. Davis is an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel campus, and those of us who are faculty in the Jewish studies program do not have that opinion at all,” Wolf said. “U.C. Davis is completely a safe space for Jewish students.
“I trust the students,” Wolf added. “They are fully capable of speaking up and do not need outside groups speaking for them.”
On Oct. 13, Chani Oppenheim, executive director of Hillel at Davis and Sacramento, sent out an informative but reassuring email to colleagues. “We have superb police protection, and we are open for business as usual,” she wrote. “This appears to be a random act of hate, not targeted against specific individuals.”
Reifkind noted that with the spike in violence in Israel right now, facing anti-Semitism in California is disconcerting. “My home in Davis and my homeland in Israel are both being attacked,” she said. “That makes it a particularly scary time.”
Aggies for Israel announced early this week it had scheduled a vigil for the victims of the “recent atrocities” in Israel. It was to take place at the Hillel house in Davis on Oct. 14, after J.’s deadline.