DALLAS — A Dallas councilmember said her home was vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti over the weekend.
Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn (District 12), who is Jewish, posted pictures on X, saying her fence was spray-painted red with the words "baby killer" and with inverted triangles.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, an inverted red triangle can symbolize "support for violent Palestinian resistance against Israel."
The Holocaust Encyclopedia says colored inverted triangles were also used in Nazi Germany to mark different Jewish prisoners, red being for political prisoners.
Mendelsohn's photos also show what she described as a "pile of rocks and bricks and fake dead babies."
She shared on X that the incident happened on Saturday.
"It's unimaginable to me how our country has changed in the last 40 years," she wrote in her post. "Folks, you're going to need to stop sitting on the sidelines thinking everything will be ok. Things are not ok."
Dallas police told WFAA that they did respond to a service call in North Dallas and saw graffiti when they arrived. They said their investigation is ongoing.
"This is part of our world now," Mendelsohn told WFAA Monday. "When I saw it, my heart sunk and I thought maybe they're right. Maybe I was too naive."
Anti-hate groups say that feeling is becoming too common among American Jews.
"It's staggering," said Joel Schwitzer, the regional director for the American Jewish Committee.
He said after the Hamas attack on Israel and the resulting war, more than 75% of American Jews report feeling less safe.
"All of this is unacceptable," he said. "We need to a return to a time where we could disagree agreeably."
She said the graffiti has been cleaned up and there's been an outpouring of support from her neighbors.
"Phone calls, text messages, people showing up to my door with flowers, messages, emails. That's the heartwarming part I guess," she said. "But I'm not sure we should have to go through criminal activity to get there."
In a post on X Monday, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson called the vandalism a "shameful attempt to harass, bully and intimidate a member of our City Council at her home." He said it was "disgusting," "reprehensible," and "blatant antisemitism."
"Dallas will not tolerate hate, and I trust that the Dallas Police Department and our law enforcement partners will act swiftly to identify those responsible and take steps to protect our community," Johnson wrote.
Mendelsohn's post on X was in response to an advertisement created by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism (FCAS) that was posted on X. The original post said this advertisement would air during the Super Bowl, but it was uploaded to the FCAS YouTube channel in March 2023.
The foundation did air a new Super Bowl commercial about standing against hate.
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