Antisemitic graffiti was being removed off the walls of four Montgomery County, Maryland, schools after they were found vandalized Monday.
“It’s disappointing that teachers and administrators returned to school today, only to face this kind of hateful graffiti on their building walls,” said Guila Franklin Siegel, chief operating officer of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington.
The graffiti at the schools — Wooten High School in Rockville, Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Fallsmead Elementary School in Rockville and Strathmore Elementary School in Silver Spring — comes almost a week after vandals struck Congregation Beth El in Bethesda. Two days before that, vulgar messages were spray-painted at Bethesda Elementary School in Bethesda.
The Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) said it received calls about bias-related vandalism at the four schools between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
The graffiti included swastikas and hateful messages about Israel regarding its ongoing war with Hamas.
“MCPS is working in collaboration with MCPD to investigate these vandalisms,” the police department said in a statement.
The graffiti at the schools also included anti-LGBTQ language, according to a social media post by Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Thomas Taylor. He said principals are reaching out to their communities to address the vandalism.
“We firmly denounce divisive actions that perpetuate hate, inequality, and injustice against any person, family, or community,” Taylor said in the statement.
“(The vandalism) will not help anybody, and all it does is divide the community, hurt people deeply and create a school environment that many Jews, whether teachers or students, find threatening and harassing. It makes them feel less safe,” Siegel said.
Montgomery County’s first day of the 2024-2025 school year is Monday, Aug. 26.
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